First Signs Of Frost – The Shape Of Things To Come

Pic Ben Ashton

The Shape Of Things To Come is the first EP since British rock band First Signs Of Frost emerged from a hiatus a couple of years back; its title as much a declaration of the fresh blossoming sound and creative chapter within the band as the themes it explores across five absorbing tracks.

Formed in 2004, the quartet of guitarist/vocalist Owen Hughes-Holland, guitarist Adam Mason, drummer Will Gates, and bassist Dan Oehlman grabbed keen attention with their debut EP, In Our Final Chapter. 2007 saw Daniel Tompkins join up as lead vocalist before the acclaimed release of first album Atlantic and a period see the band play alongside the likes of Deaf Havana, Enter Shikari, Architects, You Me At Six, We Are The Ocean, Senses Fail, Devil Sold His Soul and many more. Before the fuss had settled around the release, Tompkins left to join TesseracT. His departure left a gap the band struggled to fill; thus their hiatus until Hughes-Holland resurrected the band in 2015. Linking up with Mason again as well as bassist Andy C Saxton (ex-Cry For Silence), vocalist Daniel Lawrence (ex-Kenai / All Forgotten), and drummer Alex Harford, the London quintet immediately sought to explore and push their sound to new imaginative heights with The Shape Of Things To Come the first glimpse of their success.

Immersing inspirations from the likes of Deftones, Tool, Further Seems Forever, and Glassjaw into their invention, First Signs Of Frost swiftly lures ears with opener Meat Week. Its atmospheric calm is a quick enticement, the gentle caress of guitar a matching lure before the brooding air also there sparks a bolder expulsion of sound. Lawrence’s vocals immediately impress, his melodic expression matched by the colluding warm and wiry textures of the sounds around him. An infectious energy is equally as persuasive within the song, every element bold without being forceful but making a strongly emotive and technically alluring temptation on ears and imagination.

The following White Flag potently backs up the great start; its enterprise similarly resourceful and ear catching without making over aggressive trespasses upon the senses. There is elegance to the First Signs Of Frost sound which charms as the craft of the individuals captivates; again making for a gentle almost smouldering seduction carried in a contagious and skilfully conjured proposal.

Latest single Look Alive Sunshine is next up with its own individual melodic rock venture veined by djent scented progressive metal intricacies. There is jaggedness which bites as the vocals and melodies hug the senses; a union which grips and lingers even if the song just fails to touch the plateau of its predecessors before the evocative climate and atmospheric ambience of Atlantis drifts in with the superb vocals of Lawrence and keys to the fore. An instinctive emotional intensity rises within the song, simmering down again before repeating its cycle within the graceful serenade.

The EP closes with Sharks; it too an initially serene coaxing but one soon revealing its djent nurtured teeth and creative volatility within a subsequent sea of melodic and technical but emotionally inflamed tranquillity. It is a fine end to a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable release. The Shape Of Things To Come feels like the first step towards something bigger and bolder but is a full pleasure in its own right; a mix which makes First Signs Of Frost a band which just has to be followed closely.

The Shape Of Things To Come is out now via Basick Records and available @ https://basick.supplies/collections/first-signs-of-frost or http://music.basickrecords.com/album/the-shape-of-things-to-come

https://www.facebook.com/FSOFofficial/

Pete RingMaster 15/08/2017

Void of Kings – Stand Against The Storm

Dec23

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Released in 2011, the If Ever Hades Spoke EP made for an imposing and attention grabbing debut from US metallers Void of Kings. Raw and slightly flawed in small areas it still impressively insisted that its creators were kept under close watch and that the potential of greater things ahead was inevitable. A couple of singles the following year confirmed that suggestion and more but only hinted at the might and furiously thrilling encounter which has emerged as their first album. Stand Against The Storm is a beast of a confrontation, a proposition bursting with exhaustive fury and enthralling invention around a spine of uncompromising metalcore voracity. It shows a growth in sound and songwriting which not only irons out any earlier ‘issues’ but reveals there is still plenty more to be discovered and tapped within the band in the future.

Since forming in 2011 and alongside their previous releases, the Baltimore quintet has similarly drawn acclaim with their live presence, playing alongside the likes of Periphery, Impending Doom, and Becoming the Archetype as well as making highly praised appearances on the 2011 Thrash and Burn tour with bands such as Winds of Plague and playing the main stage at Scream the Prayer Tour a year later. Now Void of Kings unleashes their most potent and broadest temptation yet with Stand Against The Storm. Recorded with Will Beasley (Emarosa, Handguns) at Salad Days Studio (Darkest Hour, Senses Fail, Sky Eats Airplane, Converge, Thrice), the album is a statement of intent and alarm call to the world of the inescapable venom swinging, imagination driven storm that is Void of Kings.

The first breath of opener Crossing the Acheron is a thick expulsion of pungent riffs and imposing rhythms bound in a sonic spicing which has ears and appetite immediately and seriously interested. This bait only increases as the rich scowls of vocalist Brian Behm roar and rage whilst the abrasing and enticing craft of guitarists Grant Rizzi and Dan Maloney add their weight to the persuasion. One of the comments we had about the band’s previous EP was the strong and enjoyable but unadventurous vocal presentation which is swiftly left in the past as Behm explores a varied and thrilling diversity across song and album. His antagonistic incitement is a constantly enthralling twisting of tenacity and imposing narrative whilst the clean vocals of Richards equally light up the thrillingly unpredictable brute of a song.

The stunning start is continued with Wounds, another going for the jugular from its first second with tendrils of sonic tenacity courting the dramatic punches of drummer Jake Livingston and 1911882_983788448302453_5892065009981890503_n the bass predation of Nick Richard. More vicious and intensive than its predecessor, the song stomps across and stalks the senses with a ravenous rabidity and riveting invention, raising another spring of hunger in the appetite which both Scars and Pathways feed with ease. The first of the pair has an almost serpentine edge to its vocals and melodic toxicity but equally a thunderous and at times lumbering intensity which adds to a beauty and the beast contrasting presence. Again the spread of vocal enterprise is exciting whilst the rhythmic and melodic invention has the passions licking their lips in satisfaction and the anticipation of more, straight away provided by the song’s rapacious successor. There is a hunger and instinctive savagery to Pathways which engrosses as potently as the technical and sonic prowess skirting the anthemic roar of the encounter thrills.

Though neither The Darkest Place and the slightly over long H.O.P.E. quite live up to the peaks before them, each provides creative adventures which add easy to devour intrigue and flavour to the album, especially the latter of the two with its delicious gentle opening weave of evocative melodies and mellow emotive vocals. Lined against a brooding bassline from Richard, it is a richly tantalising entrance which fascinates as it evolves into a torrent of thrash spiced riffery within fierce sonic flaming. The song is a perpetual lure but just lacks the final spark to be the pinnacle it could have been, though to be fair it only impresses more and unveils greater depths with every listen, much as the album.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress looms over the listener next within the artillery of testing rhythms and caustic riffery ridden by the eventful vocal scourging of Behm. A hardcore spicing adds extra character to the drama and lure of the transfixing incitement before it makes way for the mightily bracing and anthemically challenging Conviction, which in turn departs for the outstanding Foreverwar to unveil its triumph. The band’s current single, it is a web of bass tenacity, vivaciously swung beats, and vocal raging within which guitars and clean tones flirt with mouth-watering designs.

Stand Against the Storm is completed by firstly the dark and heavy suasion of Surrender (Bleach the Flag) and lastly the toxic furnace of Serotinous Seed, both tracks exacting and compelling offerings reasserting the strength of the album and the new creative stature of Void of Kings. It may have come in the final weeks of the year but Stand Against the Storm has staked its claim as certainly one of our favourite metal offerings this year and right there on the front line of the best unleashed. More importantly it declares Void of Kings as ready to steal the passions of the world, a theft it is hard to see the band not pulling off.

Stand Against The Storm is available now on CD from http://voidofkings.bigcartel.com/ and digitally @ https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/stand-against-the-storm/id947137489

http://www.VoidofKings.com

RingMaster 23/12/2014

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Forever In Promise: Into The Storm

Apr3

Impressive is the first word that came to mind as the debut EP from US metalcore band Forever In Promise infiltrates the ear. There has been a formidable collection of debuts in the genre and metal in general from new young and excellent bands so far this year to which the trio and their Into The Storm EP can be firmly added. Made up of five powerful slabs of metal the EP is a remarkable blend of vibrant and inventive sounds with direct and thunderous intensity. It is not the most brutal release you will come across but it is easily one of the most pleasing.

Forever In Promise is a trio coming from Texas and New York who came together in 2011. Consisting of vocalists Jordan Cordova and Matt Barlett who provide the clean and growls respectively and multi- instrumentalist Zach Norman who provides guitars, bass, drums & synth, the band has produced a release that as well as ticking all the boxes for the genre brings its own diverse and imaginative extras. The result is an EP that pulls one eagerly in for a very fulfilling experience and a compulsive towering ride. The post production on Into The Storm was handled by John Naclerio from Nada Recording Studio (Senses Fail, My Chemical Romance, The Ataris, Brand New) earlier this year and there is no doubt there is an understanding between him and the band that has added something extra to the songs they recorded. There is a clarity and depth that allows each component to breathe and flourish even when the intensity thickens.

The release opens with the brief piano led instrumental Drifting. The track brings an atmospheric calm and ambient elegance to envelope the ear before the following explosive tracks led by Communications Are Down take hold. With a flavour of As I Lay Dying the track roughs up the ear with probing riffs and barracking rhythms whilst the coarse growls of Barlett are as uncompromising as the sounds. Once the clean vocals of Cordova join the forage within the senses the song takes on another dimension, his tones the perfect mediator between senses and the blistered intrusive sounds. The rhythms offer a djent inspired attack whilst bass and guitars plunder the ear with an aggressive but distinct design. The song also has the added delight of vocalist Evelynn from polish post hardcore band Nurth bringing further variation to the vocals.

The title track and the remaining songs The Deepest Part Is You and Message From Home all offer equal quality sounds and imagination. The first of the three with a more defined electronic flow behind the tumultuous sounds lights up the ear with a surety and craft to keep things persistently engaging and unpredictable. The combination of clean and caustic vocals is impressive, with the band finding the perfect blend between them. The Deepest Part Is You reminds a little of I Am Abomination, the melodic craft of the track veining the slightly oppressive intensity in a song that is thoroughly compulsive and further proof that Norman is a skilled musician with an apparent flare on all instruments he brings to the project. The track demands like all the other songs full attention but needs not resort to battering the listener to do it. It may attack with a deliberate strength and feistiness but the influences from other genres and the vibrant nature of the sound sets the release and band apart from similar flavoured bands.

Closing on the brief and again atmospheric Message From Home which with the opener brings a book end like completion to the EP, Into The Storm is an excellent release and the cause of great anticipation and belief of even greater things ahead from Forever In Promise cons. The EP is available as a free download from the official band website @ http://www.foreverinpromise.com/ so there really is no reason not to discover the fresh breath in metalcore that is Forever in Promise.

RingMaster 03/04/2012