Frozen Sword

In a day and age where old school (traditional) heavy metal has found a strong revival, bands are arising like hordes of newborn rats from the city sewers. Much like in the 1980's when this particular style of metal prevailed, it starts with a few really great bands which quickly become too many, after which the whole scene starts to largely suck because of all the filler bands essentially taking up space. Frozen Sword is yet another modern band carrying the traditional metal flag, but it's not really the most glorious triumph within the scene.

Frozen Sword's overall sound is something of a cross between bands such as Running Wild, Manowar and Accept. It's a pretty common straight forward-type of sound relying more on heavy riffs and drums rather than lots of melody. This works really well in creating a good heavy metal sound which Frozen Sword initially carry out more than well enough. A large downside to it all, however, is that a lot of the riffs sound lifted from several of their possible idols. For instance, in the album's opening track "Blessing Way" there's a main riff pretty similar to Black Sabbath's "Children of the Grave". Another prime example is "Shepherd of the Sea" which is more or less a blatant rip-off of Accept's "Princes of the Night" downright to the riff, tempo, gang vocals and partially structure. This largely gives the entire record a feeling of being very unoriginal.

Another flaw I found with this record is Frozen Sword's songwriting style. Their songs are decently put together but often lack any truly memorable parts or powerful moments. They just don't seem to know how to create a really impactful chorus. Most of the time the best thing about an entire song is the driving (and "stolen") verse riff. It's not necessarily a bad trait, but when every track follows this formula it just gets boring in the long run. They're also a decent bunch of musicians but nothing of any higher calibers. Most of the instrumentation is kept relatively low profile while sounding very tight and rehearsed, which is one of album's upsides. I don't really have any complaints about the instrumentation itself, but the vocalist can sometimes come across as a little off. He's something of a most B-rate Eric Adams trying to do some powerful vocals, which rarely works that well. At times he almost sounds like he drunkenly stumbles into the song and starts singing. It just doesn't sound very good.

Frozen Sword is basically a product of its time and genre. In a wide selection of heavy metal revival bands you must expect a large part of them to be rather lukewarm. Unfortunately, so is the case for these guys. I'm not completely bashing on these guys because there is some potential to be found here after all, but that potential is largely buried beneath what seems and sounds like influences gone too far. I wish to see them trying to come up with more exclusive and original riffs and work harder on their song structures. The production could also be a lot better, seeing as it's kind of muffled and mastered too loud. I think these kind of changes would benefit them greatly.

To conclude this interview I would sadly not recommend this release. It's just too run-of-the-mill to be of any greater interest, and that's coming from a mad metal collector. If you want more old school heavy metal, you're better off with bands like Demon Bitch, Eternal Champion or Angel Sword.