Hellfrost and Fire 🇬🇧/🇺🇸 Fire, Frost and Hell

Band: Hellfrost and Fire
Title: Fire, Frost and Hell
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Release date: 18 March 2022
Country: UK / USA
Format reviewed: High-quality Digital Recording

Well, a warning must be done: you’ll end up with serious neck injuries by listening to this album. Seriously! Because… this is truly Old School Death Metaaaaal! And I think that not only Death Metal maniacs will enjoy this 10-track LP, but specially these ones will do, as it delivers relentless and neck-breaking riffs from start to finish. This is the way it is supposed to be done, and I love it! Will you love it too? Let’s see…

Just by looking at the lineup, you should be really excited, ‘cause Dave Ingram is “the Beast” providing vocals for Hellfrost and Fire. At least, I can’t hide it: since I knew about this new band, I was expecting a high level of brutality at vocals delivery, and I’m not deceived at all! Ingram is brilliant at showing off his raspy growls, his animalistic roars… the way he always does. His voice sounds monstrous enough to make me shiver, he keeps a perfect vocal shape through years!

The man in charge of the string section (guitar and bass) is Rick “Dennis” DeMusis, a musician from the US that does a great work, playing an insane amount of riffs that will be stuck in your head… if your brain has not collapsed before. Damn, that low tuned guitar! Sounds fantastic! If this wasn’t enough, Scott Fairfax (Memoriam, As The World Dies) is playing some great solos here, so… more to enjoy!

Travis Ruvo is behind the drum kit, he smashes it relentlessly and provides that constant blasting aggression that makes anyone lose their head. I particularly love when a drummer can have me hooked on all that “tacatacatacataca” and the constant pounding of the snare, toms and cymbals with the variation as this man does.

The two initial tracks, “Legion of Hellfrost and Fire” and “Black Secrets in the Splintering Walls” are truly infectious, kind of hypnotic. Guitars and drums set the pace and you just can’t stop headbanging. Nothing more, nothing less. Ingram’s bestial bellows take control and you just surrender to his ominous speech. And if you survive this initial attack, you still have 8 more tracks to enjoy.

“Meridian’s Acquisition” is a short track (less than 3 minutes running) containing a really delightful guitar solo, this is like a little oasis amidst the constant aggression from low tune guitars and explosive drums. And you will get trapped by the start of the following “The Lost King and The Heir Apparent” starts, with the sound of a sinister bell chiming and guitars, bass and cymbals playing a soft and dark passage that seems to lead to Hell… and when the bleak spoken words enter, you know that you are almost there. Wow, I love the menacing ambience these guys create here!

The album goes on delivering that great sound until the end, there’s not a single moment when you could say that the band loosen up… And the final song, “Within and Without the Emperor’s Frontier” has something special due that groovy and catchy initial riff, besides of all the rest. Well, I’m not going to dissect all the tracks in detail here but I leave you the essential information: a warning that this album contains only the greatest Death Metal. I don’t know if I’ll listen to something similar this year, I only know that this is outstanding, a must have. Don’t sleep on this and go for it! I give it 9/10 Sílvia

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9/10 Epic Storm
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