Frozen Shadows - Hantises (2004)

During Frozen Shadows fifteen years of existence the band has been placed on hiatus a few times, they’ve had a few members split and they’ve only unleashed three creations – A demo titled, ‘Empires de Glace’ in ’96, their full-length debut, ‘Dans les Bras des Immortels’ in ’98 and this little gem here called, ‘Hantises,’ which saw release back in ’04.

The two early releases from this Montreal, Quebec based band drew plenty of influence from the early Emperor, Satyricon and Immortal records, while Hantises (that’s French for ‘Obsessions’) did away with the lo-fi production and turned up the tempo considerably perhaps placing them within the same ballpark as bands like Tsujder, Setherial or Marduk. So, obviously we’ve got furious blast beats, incredibly speedy tremolo picking and power chord riffs as well as some brief synthetic enrichment and hateful vocals.

What’s interesting about this record is that while the music is almost always high-speed there’s some sort of strange groove within Alvater and Namtar’s guitar work that actually makes it catchy and pretty much forces me to headbang for the entire record. Melkor’s drumming is absolutely merciless and while the majority of the record is blast beats it also shifts to galloping slower paces at times to even some militaristic like beats here and there. Myrkhaals’ synth work is briefly but tastefully used while it’s his malicious screams, howls and shrieks ripped fourth from the bowels of hell that really propel this record to even greater heights. Interestingly there are few moments where the music moves at a near snail like pace often times building up to an epic summit, which in turn blasts the listeners head cleanly off when the battle continues. I love records like this.

Frozen Shadows is more than likely one of the oldest black metal bands from Quebec and since the scene there is overflowing with interesting talent right now I’d say now would be about the right time to make album number three while shredding us all to pieces in the process. If you haven’t heard this album, then do so, it’s a stunning release that deserved a lot more attention both then and now.