#AlbumReview: Grabunhold – Frostheim

Band: Grabunhold
Album: Frostheim
Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Release date: June 05th, 2026
Country: Germany
Format reviewed: High quality digital recording

#AlbumReview: Grabunhold – Frostheim via Iron Bonehead Productions by Ioana

As per my incapability of keeping up with this year’s underground activity, my journey to this album included a rather bizarre mix of anticipation, forgetting the release date, and waking up on a random day, realizing the album is out and that I am once again late to the party. Fortunately, delays regarding the first listen are rarely known to affect both the quality of the album as well as that of the experience itself, so when I finally sat down to both listen to it, as well as write this review, the intent was clear: Listen and immerse yourself in the music. Grabunhold also happens to be a band I am rather passionate about, their previous full length Heldentod having landed their logo a rightful place on my battle vest. That, of course, resulted in the first announcement of Frostheim coming off as an undoubtedly pleasant surprise, but also as a bit of an ominous entity lurking in the future. One thing that I have noticed in my relationship to music as a whole is that I tend to be weirdly reticent regarding new releases by bands that mean a lot to me, the main cause being the fear of musical flukes that would affect my respect for said band. But I think that everyone has struggled with this at some point or another.

The great part is that Frostheim not only proved itself to be a fitting successor of Heldentod, but a wonderful album in its own regard, the kind that you can listen to back to back multiple times and not get bored. This is an aspect of my listening experience that took me aback, given that lately I have been gravitating more towards the very dense, ritualistic corners of the genre. However, the more simple, stripped down approach of this album served as a great reminder for my long-running love for the more moody, primitive, but artistically rich side of black metal (other bands I would consider significant regarding this approach are Totenwache, Irrlycht, VarulV, and many others). Something else which caught my eye, not only in the case of Frostheim, but Grabunhold as a whole, is that their themes are centered around Tolkien’s work, but they do not approach them in the same way most bands do, that usually resulting in the album going down the epic black metal route. Simply put, hearing a harsh, dynamic album based on that particular literary universe is always a pleasure to hear, and it speaks both to the versatility of the genre and to the multitude of nuances in Tolkien’s oeuvre.

Onto the music itself, it is important to note that the songwriting is consistent across the record, the tracks being all particularly well written, which makes choosing the standout tracks a rather challenging ordeal, but that’s insignificant trouble when judged against the value of a consistently great listen. All that being said, I must mention “Eärnurs Verderben”, the closing track, which left me absolutely mesmerized by its mix of epic-yet-melancholic lead melodies, galloping drums, and an atmosphere that seemed to be growing more and more immersive by the end of it. The vocal performance is also one to behold, and its apparent simplicity is what makes it as potent as it is. It mostly includes middle-register rasps and shouts, but also higher-pitched screeches and lower-register variations. This works greatly when paired with the phrasing of the lyrics, as it allows certain lines to be emphasized at exactly the right time. This phenomenon is present all throughout the album, and it is one of the many factors that offer Frostheim its distinctive flow.

An area in which this album excels is the production. It sits in that oddly specific middle ground between being both gritty and old-school adjacent, but with a fuller, warmer sound, which makes a huge difference in how the drums and the bass specifically act in the soundscape. The music thus ends up gaining more depth and coming off as more layered, a significant difference form the norm with a lot of bands that follow this approach. Usually, the so-called “standard procedure” when it comes to more stripped-down black metal albums is to essentially place all instruments on the proverbial foreground. Grabunhold avoids falling into that specifically because of the previously mentioned dynamics.

That being said, I will wrap it up and stop boring everyone with my incoherence. I must also note that this is less a well-rounded review and more a collection of my impressions regarding the album, all of varying degrees of coherence. I highly recommend checking it out, as it truly is a great piece of contemporary black metal. 9/10

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9/10  Epic Storm
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