Frozen Soul presents their second album.
After an excellent debut release on Century Media Records, the American band formed in 2018 consisting of Chad Green (vocals), Samantha Mobley (bass), Michael Munday (guitar), Matt Dennard (drums) and Chris Bonner (guitar) continues their adventure with Glacial Domination, released in 2023, produced by Matthew K Heafy (Trivium, Ibaraki).
Invisible Tormentor, the first track, quickly revives the oppressive sounds before letting Death Metal’s raw strength strike. The heavy sound and massive screams coupled with Old School patterns are extremely catchy, letting the band lead us into Arsenal of War, a martial and lively track offering effective jerky riffs to accompany vindictive vocal parts with Reese Alavi (Creeping Death). The mix is still very heavy, just like on Death and Glory which lets piercing harmonics join a solid basis with Brutal Death influences haunted by raucous screams. Quite short, the track will give way to the horrific Morbid Effigy where the band welcomes John Gallagher (Dying Fetus) to strengthen this visceral heaviness which will not hesitate to explode from time to time with devastating patterns. Annihilation offers us a short moment of respite which keeps its Old School approach even in keyboards, then Glacial Domination, the eponymous track, will offer heady melodies to accompany the efficient rhythmic, helped by Matthew K Heafy. Some groovy parts give the steady march some rhythm, completed by solos, then Frozen Soul will offer us another moment to catch our breath before letting some impressive riffs feed violence. The marked rhythmic allows airy leads to this song’s coldness just like on Assimilator and its epic harmonics which give relief to very catchy and jerky riffs while proposing a typical approach of the 90’s Death Metal. Best Served Cold, the following composition, will offer aggressive and heavy rhythm changes, then the band puts us back in a climate of terror with Abominable before releasing regular and crushing riffs. We’ll still find an acceleration to allow lead guitar to place a tortured solo, then Atomic Winter will come to sound the end of the album with a last fix of raw fury the band tempers with a rather slow tempo, stifling palm mutes and always this Old School mix.
Although Frozen Soul is a relatively young band, their devotion to Old School Death Metal is impressive, as is their mastery. As soon as Glacial Domination starts, the album suffocates you with heavy riffs, not to mention a good fix of massive vocals and sharp leads.
95/100
Few questions to Chad Green, singer for the band Frozen Soul.
Hello and first of all, thank you very much for your time! Could you please introduce yourself and the band Frozen Soul without using the usual Metal “labels”?
Chad Green (vocals): Not sure what you mean by metal labels haha but I’m Chad I’m the singer and I’m accompanied by Michael and Chris on guitars, Sam on bass and Matt on drums. We’re an ice cold Death Metal band from the great state of Texas!
Glacial Domination, your second full-length, will be out in May. How do you feel about it? Do you already have some feedback?
Chad: We love it and feel that it tops everything we wanted to do and more, the feedback has been truly amazing so far!
How would you sum Glacial Domination up in only three words?
Chad: Merciless, Ruthless and Cold.
How did you deal with the composition process for this album? Did you notice some changes between this record and the previous one?
Chad: We tightened things up and focused on trying to write better songs with a more even flow to them. We were a lot more finely tuned for this process than the last we did pre production, and spent a lot of time on each song.
On the song Morbid Effigy, you welcome John Gallagher from Dying Fetus. How did this collaboration happen? Same question for Reese Alavi from Creeping Death on Arsenal Of War.
Chad: We love John and Dying Fetus, they took us on our first support tour and showed us the world in a different way, it was very fitting to have John on one of our most heavy songs. Reese and the rest of Creeping Death are like brothers to us, we love those guys and have grown in bands next to them for many years, the song Arsenal of War is a memorial song for my lost brother Cory Green, who was a huge Hardcore and Metal fan and was a huge part of our scene. That song is a collection of things from our home town to commemorate him including one of his favorite bands Creeping Death and also a dive bomb solo by Blake Ibanez of Power Trip and Fugitive.
Maybe you have a favorite song on this album? Or the one you just can’t wait to play on stage?
Chad: My personal favorite is Arsenal of War, I also really like Death and Glory and the two songs inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing, Frozen Soul and Assimilator.
Do you already have some plans for the band’s future?
Chad: Always, we write more, tour more and keep it moving so we can preserve the legacy we are creating.
I was lucky enough to catch your show in Paris last February, how was the tour, and especially this concert for you?
Chad: The tour was amazing, we had a lot of fun with all the bands! It was great getting to explore parts of the world we haven’t been to and meeting so many incredible Metal fans!
With which bands would you love to tour with? I let you create a tour (or just a single show) with Frozen Soul and three other bands!
Chad: Some of our bucket list bands would be Obituary, Hatebreed, and Cannibal Corpse!
That was the last question for me, so thank you very much for your time and your music, last words are yours!
Chad: Thank you very much for the interview, and to everyone out there we will see you soon!