The RMR crew spent a lot of time in hybrid country lately. Explorative records that will strain and weave to escape your mental grip. Difficult to grasp and even worse to review. But then, nobody ever said that the existence of an unpaid reviewer should be easy over at the RMR Office Tower. Right?
But sometimes, just sometimes, this crew yearns for something predictable. For feisty riffs and thundering drums rumbling over our stomachs and rough-hewn growls trying to rip our ears off our vibrating skulls. Let the terrible power of Death Metal shower us with metal shards and burn some mental fat in the process. Horns up! Send them brutal beatz!
And, thus, the terrible Gawds of Metal finally saw the sickly light of the North and sent Frozen Soul our way. A band with ice-water in their gelid veins and no taste for warm and cozy places. Thus, unsurprisingly, No Place of Warmth was their chosen moniker for this newest winterfest. And make no mistake, this band doesn’t reinvent the wheel by trying to best well-proven Death Metal tropes. If anything, they reinforce what is already there. Death and Brutal Death Metal truly is their daily metallic bread. And I mean the full impersonation of a DM act, complete with an unreadable logo that looks more like a tramp stamp tattoo than something I could actually read. But look at the bright side, that is what’s called ‘fitting the mold’.
Frozen Soul serve you with gusto and a ton of almost cosmic power. A style that sometimes eerily veers into Swedeath territory more than it probably should. But I also hear Cannibal Corpse once they slow down, Bolt Thrower in their more pensive moods, Dying Fetus1, and – strangely enough – Amon Amarth of all acts.
So, you got our drift, right? No Place of Warmth excels in bringing those age-old Death Metal vibes back to life. And that’s an astonishing feat for a band that’s been in action only since 2018. Compared to the other dinosaurs out there, that is. Why would that be surprising, you might ask? Well, Frozen Soul don’t only copy their chosen trade. They thrive in it. But one of the most exciting parts of their offering truly are those breakdowns into Brutal Death Metal. In the midst of hot action full of killings and wishful, raspy warmongering, boom goes the change, and the feisty gurgling starts. Frozen Soul seemingly falls down a chute into a part of hell too hot for them to handle. But they sweatily slave on with them sludgy DM vibes until the friendly cold incites to thrash ahead once more with the usual fare.
No Place of Warmth for sure gets you its share of typical yet proficient riffing from across the Death Metal spectrum with some scarce short solos scattered around for good sport. And that leads to yet another case of the repetition bug. Grime, grit, and overall ferocious feistiness is surely part of the record’s DNA, but after a while, their tune – sadly – moves somewhat into the background. And whilst this is kinda typical for this genre and type of album, the RMR crew would have wished itself less Neanderthal-ism and more cold fury and true wrath in this secret sauce Frozen Soul serves us with here. To get there, however, the act would have to move somewhat beyond the doggedly old-style Death Metal they serve and fire up the amps some more.
Ultimately, though, No Place of Warmth delivers as promised. The band unloaded fierce axe work, gritty rasps and snarls, and shattering drums to form their own brand of devil’s music, bringing vile oomph to places old masters such as Rogga Johansson haven’t visited in a while. And it’s great to see a ‘young’ band taking the baton to rage on down that atrocity-infested road to damnation. One that Death Metal Central has been on for a while. This is rock-solid Extreme Metal fare that old and younger fans will truly enjoy. Food for the moshpit and blowouts of all fuses at big concerts included. Now, set your music machine to full blast, hit play, and roar your neighbors out of their comfy beds. They deserve no better, those non-believers.
Record Rating: 6/10 | Label: Century Media | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 8 May 2026
- Still one of the dumbest band names out there. I am always having these visions of well-meaning friends politely asking what your band name might be during a civilized dinner. That kind of thing. -Ed.-↩