Hantises

The representation of vocals, drums and synthesizers in the mix is clear, guitars are not washed-out and display sharp overtones, although they appear slightly compressed. The bass presence is barely (and not in all tracks) noticeable, but this lack in the lower registers and rhythmic section is partly made up by an immensely muscular drum performance.

The crisp production is more than adequate for the frighteningly fast and precise craftsmanship of this band. Keyboards are used only sporadically and serve as harmonic counterpoints to the freezing cold riffage, which often leans towards atonality and as a result sounds comparatively flat in its harmonic bandwidth. When synthesizers make their rare (and welcome) appearances, however, these riffs are unexpectedly gaining gravity and a poignant effect is setting in, of which the calculated effect on the listener is even grimmer coldness.

The songs display serious compositional depth, deny themselves to simple, too predictable phrasing, and with a typical length of around seven minutes know to appease minds with longer attention-spans. Each track is based on a considerable number of riffs, which energetically press towards large arcs of tension with rather complex song structures. The pieces are constructed from a relentless motion desire; notwithstanding the brilliance of some musical ideas, these ideas appear rather understated and constantly escape formulaic reuse. This results in a tasteful unpredictability and an album that resists wearing off quickly.

Not exactly typical for this genre, tempo and rhythmic interplay between drums and guitars varies in interesting ways especially during mid-tempo passages and bridges. Particularly startling are blast passages at an apparently maxed-out tempo, which out of the blue are getting accelerated and intensified in their style of playing. This in combination with an uncompromising precision (you will never encounter anything resembling riff salad or a sloppy rhythm on this album) gives an almost surreal energetic feel to the music, as if it was played by musicians of an elder, more perfect race.

The sincerety of this album is substantiated by its uncompromising advancement and concentration on the most timeless and introvert black metal ideas. It leaves everything behind in ruins, like a heavy snowstorm that was cast to wipe out any conceivable deformity of the past. As such, it plays in the same league as Emperor's "In the Nightside Eclipse", fully taking into account that "Hantises" was released ten years later. The awareness of this album's songwriting is hardly paralleled in recent years, and Frozen Shadows succeed in constantly surpassing themselves in providing even colder twists, accelerating at already impossible speeds, and suddenly releasing their immense tension to leave the listener in solitude and confusion. The same principle is on display on a larger scale in the phenomenal last track of the album, "Towards the Chambers of Nihil", which breaks with any predictable song structure and serves as a baffling, deperessing conclusion. This song title is as programmatic as the band name.

This album widens the borders of the genre, but only a band as conscious and capable as Frozen Shadow can slip through the gap and seize the new territory; painful as it sounds, hardly any other band will be able to follow the path this band has chosen.