Joni Snoro - Guitars, Vocals: Joonas Nislin - Drums: Juho Patinen - Guitars:
Felipe Munoz - Keyboards: Lauri Myllylä - Bass:Pursuant to a multitude of unspoken Finnish melodeath laws, Frosttide will always find themselves instinctively compared to the more audacious fare that blew so many of us away roughly 10-12 years ago. The Wintersun comparison is one that is so easy to draw here, but in my eyes, that implies marked deficiencies all across the board. Wintersun's debut had a few great tunes, especially "Battle Against Time," but honestly the entire project has become a parody of itself in recent years for reasons I can't be bothered to explain. Enter Frosttide, who came out of seemingly nowhere two years ago and blew me away with Awakening, which melded all paradigmatic attributes common for the style purported by Ensiferum and the like. Only, these fellas aren't exactly down in the squalor of the battlefield waxing heroically concerning deeds of valor and courage, instead isolated up in the nearby hillside congregated around a campfire, content to hammer out odes to the mystical and abstruse without ever losing that monumentally uplifting and powerful melodic astringency that gives the style such lasting power.
For clarity's sake, the remaining Wintersun comparisons should be addressed right away. This primarily comes into play concerning the procession of the record, which akin to the debut, consists of only a handful of songs, with two of them hovering around the ten minute mark. Being familiar with the band right from jump, this wasn't of much concern to me, but it should stand to reason that if a duff tune does come down the creek, it hurts more than it should since a large swath of the album drops out as a result. "Gates of the Asylum" is such a number, as it fails to craft the esoteric magicks I have to come expect from these guys in a consistent manner. The primary motif of the tune is quite lackluster, and I found myself repeatedly checking my watch, wondering if and when the next song would ever finally come around. A disappointment after the riveting title track to be sure.
Looking at the record as a whole, while such a complex formula could easily lose traction in the hands of a band of overtly self-indulgent dilettantes, I have always appreciated these guys as not only a collaborative project, but on an individual level as well. Particularly Felipe Munoz, who blows me away in nearly every project he has contributed. A moment of self-realization occurred while listening to this thing, wherein I realized how much more genuine it sounds when the keyboard arrangements are truly played by hand instead of taking the easy route and programming them like so many other acts do, whether it be a lack of resources or concerted laziness. The two instrumental breaks make this case for me, and both lead spectacularly into two of the strongest numbers here.
One of those examples would of course be "New Reign," which makes great use of the lack of time constraints to craft a bulwark of pure majesty, comprised of grainy chugs, delicate lead intervals and an overall well-written arrangement on the whole. Generally, the guitars sort of bob and weave back and forth between more traditional melodic death and less weighty power metal antics, and the intangible, joyous vision elucidated means that even the shorter tunes hardly have their work cut out for them. Generally, newer acts like Frosttide tend to trace steps long forgotten and return to the eager, hungry sounds of their broadsword-swinging forebears, but I found it quite refreshing that these Finns are otherwise content to expound on the vivacious debut. It works damn well.
Other than the fact that the production values are a modicum suspect at times (the guitar tone is honestly rather toothless), there is little to complain about here other than "Gates of the Asylum." That one off-song means that Blood Oath fails to upstage its predecessor in lasting power, but for those of you sick of Wintersun's bullshit as of late, there is no reason to cry over spilled Koskenkorva; as Frosttide's got your back, and they deserve a pat on theirs as a result. Great stuff.
Review written by Diamhea for www.metal-archives.com
Links:
http://www.frosttide.com/
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Frosttide/3540312723
