Review Summary: An impressive debut.
Every once in a while I catch wind of a band getting a lot of hype and praise in the community. I heard UK quintet
First Signs Of Frost through a dear friend of mine and she recommended that I listened to them, so I picked up their debut album titled
Atlantic. Does the praise about this band really match their musicianship? Yes and No.
FSOF bring a ton of freshness to the table with this release. The vocalist shows a ton of competence and strength in the opening song titled
“Through The Exterior” which blows open the door of the album with medial progressive chugging done right matched with the soothing voice of Dan Tompkins. This goes straight into a melodic interlude towards the middle of the song for a bit but then goes right back into the driving guitars. The drumming is consistent and on time displaying a ton of avidity on this side. This combination of explosive progression hooking into interludes then hooking back into explosive progression and/or vice versa is a recurring theme in the album, but remains fresh with every song. I only had one question lingering in my head at some parts “where’s the bass?”
The album completely stops its progressive pace at a piano ballad that shares the title of the album. Overall, this song is quite pleasant, its piano interlude is done to perfection while Tompkins provides a soothing and quite chilling vocal accompaniment reciting “We’d wait for hell to freeze over before we even try to make a change,” this song for some may feel out of place.
Following the softest songs comes one of the heaviest and the best titled “Sing Sing Ain’t My Style” which opens with a chaotic blend of blast beats, tapping guitars, and shouting displaying a rawness comparable to that of
The Chariot. This chaos continues throughout the song and ends once again with a melodic interlude. The final song concludes with the same pattern as all the songs.
Overall, this prog-Post Hardcore quintet absolutely displays a ton of promise, but could do with a bit of work. One thing in particular would to stray away from the heavy to melodic to back to heavy pattern in every song as this can become quite monotonous, and add a little bit more variety to the songs. With time, this band can become better and better if they work from this impressive debut.
Pros
Great voice
Great guitar work
Great song structures
Cons
Would love to hear more bass
Would love to hear more screams
The heavy to interlude to heavy changes can be quite tiring after a few listens.
Best Songs
Sing Sing Aint My Style
Through The Exterior
The Saviour
