Frozen Soul : No Place of Warmth
It’s legitimately wild and mildly concerning on an existential level that we’re approaching a decade since the “old school death metal revival” first became a thing. The early big albums in the movement (if it can really be termed so) like Blood Incantation’s Starspawn and Tomb Mold’s Manor of Infinite Forms came out in 2016 and 2018, respectively. The scene reached its peak during the pandemic, with the likes of 200 Stab Wounds, Sanguisugabogg and Frozen Soul further stripping the genre’s flesh down to its barest bones.
There’s different interpretations of why this recursive movement arrived and its merits and/or lack thereof. Had death metal and its evil younger cousin deathcore become too OTT and bloated? Did the streaming age simply remind everyone of how sick Bolt Thrower are? Or did the genre run out of new hellish regions to explore? If there’s a pantheon of major acts in this movement, most metalheads would agree Frozen Soul are up there, certainly in terms of profile. They’re signed to Century Media, Trivium’s Matt Heafy recorded their last record (2023’s Glacial Domination) and on new album No Place of Warmth, they’ve only gone and got Gerard Way providing some unrecognizable screams to the title opener.
It’s a big dick energy move, one that’s compounded by the subsequent track “Invoke War” boasting a bridge/breakdown that features Machine Head’s Rob Flynn. The guest spots come less frequently after this—a sole appearance from Sanguisugabogg’s Devin Swank on “Dreadnought.” It says a lot that these are perhaps the most notable aspects of No Place of Warmth which, despite its brash self-confidence, admirably monumental scale and the band’s well-developed internal language (the fact they’re from Fort Worth, Texas remains amusing), fails to stick in the memory. Every track feels like it follows the same contours; the same downtuned riffs, the same savage vocals, the same grooves.
This sounds like a prosaic thing to say; every Bolt Thrower track also kind-of sounds the same. But, one, Bolt Thrower did it first; they set the boundaries. And two; what makes great bands stand out in their genre is the little details. No track on No Place of Warmth, other than the odd spooky moment, like the brief cavernous bridge late on in “Ethereal Dreams,” adds any idea that makes them stand out from the others. It wouldn’t take much—just a couple more creative riffs or rhythms. Unfortunately, the resulting 11 tracks really do feel like a lengthy trudge through a harsh polar region, and not in the way Frozen Soul intended.
Label: Century Media
Year: 2026
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