Review Summary: Melodic black metal with heavy neoclassical influences. Is the result good? Even more than that, it is amazing.
I recently started getting into that music genre known as black metal. After years of not being able to deal with it, I've started finding the good in it, and some bands are just mindblowing. But if a black metal band has managed to get my attention completely and amazed me, that is Bitter Frost. With a mix of the typical black metal vocals, fuzzy production (albeit clearer than other black metal I've heard), tremolo picking and dark feeling, and the melody and technique of neoclassical metal, I was blown away.
Seeing how this is their debut album, I believe an introduction to the band is in order: Bitter Frost is a melodic black metal project from Stockholm, Sweden, that is the brainchild of Chris Erikson. Bitter Frost was formed back in 2004 by Chris Erikson and Stacey Rugley. Their influences were Emperor and Windir at the time, but then again Chris always had Yngwie as an influence in his guitar playing, so he focused in making extreme metal but with a neoclassical metal twist. After years of playing around with recording Chris decided to get serious about actually releasing an album, so to retain his vision for the project he parted ways with Stacy. Chris remained unsatisfied with his musical direction and audio engineering skills, and it was until 2009 that he got working, and he started to compile all of his songs together to bring them to perfection. Out of 35 different songs 13 were selected, those 13 songs being the ones that form this album.
So, on to the album, the instrumental intro “Delusions of Grandeur” gives a good idea about what you will listen to in the album. A fitting intro, it has the typical black metal tremolo picking and fuzzy production, but it has complex riffs and lead guitar parts, making the Yngwie influence pretty clear. Some keyboards can be heard too. Overall, “Delusions of Grandeur” is a fitting intro, and opens well the album. But what follows is even better. The first actual song, “Astral”, is one of the highlights of the album, with an amazing riff and following directly from the intro. It gets you hooked from the start. It is heavy, it is catchy... Overall, it is a great song. And the album keeps hitting hard.
If I had to name some highlights of the album, I'd say “Astral”, “Till Norr”, “Nemesis”, “Vulnere Vitus” and all four parts of “Oplexicon” are the big hitters of the album. Astral was described above, heavy and yet catchy and technical. “Till Nor” is the third longest song in the album after “Vulnere Virtus” and “Oplexicon IV”, and it is pretty epic. It has a monumental sound, and the only thing that prevents it from being as good is how abrupt the cut into the keyboard part at the end feels, I thought I was listening to a completely different song by then. “Nemesis” is an instrumental song, and man, what an instrumental. Chris goes all out in this song, with tremolo picking riffs, complex solos, all while keeping it melodic all around. A high quality instrumental right here, and a must hear, in my opinion. “Vulnere Vitus” is the second longest song on the album, and a quality song. It opens up with a good build up, that sounds even apocalyptic, and about a minute and 20 seconds in, the heaviness starts showing, but the keyboards keep the apocalyptic, dark feeling to it. Tremolo picking and fast drumming just add to it. This song is one of the darkest sounding of the album, just surpassed by “Oplexicon Part III: Waterboard The Peasants”.
And finally, with an entire paragraph dedicated to it, there's the epic of the album “Oplexicon”. Part I opens with some acoustic guitar, and layered clean vocals. The most un-black metal song in the album, yet it is pretty good, and played with feeling. But about 2 minutes in, the black metal part kicks in full force, and the transition is a bit too abrupt, but it works. A fitting intro for the epic of the album. And it is followed directly by part II, “Oplexicon II: Speed of Hate”, which makes honor to it's name. A pretty fast-paced, heavy song. This is perhaps the least melodic song in the album, it is just heavy and fast. Constant double bass in the background, riffs played at blazing speeds, the name just fits it perfectly. As soon as the crazy speed finishes, we enter part III, with some kind of spacey intro that sounds out of The Twilight Zone or something, before going back into the metal part about 35 seconds in. This is a mid-paced song, yet it still packs a punch. Part II was heavy and fast, this one is more sinister sounding. It even has some atmospheric instrumental segment with some samples. And then quite an amazing solo closes the song before, the big one. Part IV. One word opens it: Satan. And then it enters full force. This song isn't as fast as “Speed of Hate”, but it is quite fast. It hits you relentlessly, and it is 12 minutes of heaviness. Well, not all. About 3 minutes in, you get a great acoustic part, and it goes on until nearly 4 minutes in, when the heaviness starts returning. This song is consistently great, I might add. This is, no doubt, the best song in the album. It is complex, ambitious, and manages what it wants. There's even a mic of acoustic guitar with crazy double bass for a moment there, while it transitions into distorted guitar, and it works just perfectly. And about 7 minutes in, the song feels like it ended, but it returns with a spacy part with some awesome drumming, and some weird sampling. And it keeps going and going, but never gets boring. It closes the album in a perfect way. It is different, yet it keeps the feeling of the album, and surely it is a great closer. “Oplexicon” doesn't feel as much as a single song as it should, but it works well as a closer.
So, what can I say about this album? It is one of my favorites of the year, and I'm surprised. The quality is overall high, no song is bad at all. If there is a weak point in the album, I'd say it's “Signs That Point to Nowhere”, and that is because it feels like it drags at some points, but it's not that big of a deal. And the length of the album might turn some off, it being 72 minutes long. This album is overall awesome, but still, Chris Erikson has potential for something even better. Sure, he did an amazing job here, but at times it feels a little too pretentious. I'd recommend this album to anyone starting to get into Black Metal: It gives you a taste of the fuzzy production and the genre in general, yet it is not as harsh and it also keeps enough melody and complexity to catch your interest. I give this album a 4/5, and I'll await to see what the future of Bitter Frost holds.
