Fortunately there’s the web. Fortunately it’s still possible to find quality music and not just listen the filth that other media constantly provide us… What about this Frostrealm from the sadly unknown metal band Suotana ?
The Finnish group has released a good debut album as I have not heard for years, an album that in my opinion enshrines without doubts that the true music (metal and not only) is now definitely far from important names and survives in small realities extremely underestimated. I find myself contributing minimally to the visibility of these guys, wishing them every success for the future, because their work stroke me at the heart at the first listening without going too deep in my brain to overthink on their music, but letting me take emotions from it.
Frostrealm sounds well, damned and viscerally well, in a symphony in which nothing seems to be left to chaos and whose arrangements surprise and excite during every listening in a fusion that really has something otherworldly. Suotana are not doing something new, we are in a modern melodic death metal, but the eight tracks of Frostrealm are better than others for a factor that, in too many albums today, has been decreasing in favor of high-sounding names and productions: the style. The style of the composition, details, arrangements and the already mentioned fusion between instruments.
Frostrealm is striking for its immediacy and simplicity that makes you “rewinding” again and again, passing over any sensation of “production a little too unpolished” or “already heard” or “too similar to”, because you have the impression that the band itself passed on it for the first time and everything that could be grabbed and absorbed was taken, and this is not simple at all.
The rhythm section is excellent and functional without stretches and supports the songwriting effectively, melodic lines are amazing with a perfect balance between guitars and keyboards: the first, continuously moving on ’80 riffs, effectively support vocal lines, the second, enveloping and never invasive, embellish the whole working on medium keys. The singing is inspired and aggressive, purely scream with incursions in growl, far from unnecessary virtuosity, but perfectly at the service of the compositions.
The Suotana debut album is not anything new (who can do it today?), but these guys have managed to leave their personal imprint with taste and professionalism and their sound emerges from the pile with good peace of those who emphasize have already heard and resent something similar.
Will it be a lucky case? I look forward to the next album, wishing that the creative vein is not exhausted and does not re-propose the commercial drift that has plagued many, too many talented bands in the last twenty years.
Frostrealm is a record to have in your collection, an album that does not get tired and I never get tired of listening, an album that does not reach the score of 100 due of a production penalized by the yield of double cash and vocal parts, sometimes suffocated in the mastering.
SCORE 93/100
