Damned and Forgotten

Far away in Croatia there is a band named "The Frost". A small band from a small country with a small metal scene is considered to have some exotic-status and the reviewer shall be not too harsh with the release from this band; who knows what damage could be done.

Well, the CD starts with an instrumental. Wolfs cry, a stream is bubbling in the background and an acoustic guitar creates an atmosphere of harmony and peace; slowly moving on. Though it is a quite cliché start, is not boring or disturbing. The music fades, the wolves leave, the water is gone and (finally?) the Black Metal thunder starts.

Surprisingly in a way, oldschool Black Metal is offered. The vocals are black-metal-like croaking, yet their particular style is nothing really special, but the performance itself is not disturbingly bad. Solid is a phrase describing it properly and not only the oral part of the music, but also the often tremolo-like guitar one. A limitation lies in the presence of only one guitar and that a clearer guitar sound would have a positive effect on the album. The drumming is -- surprise, surprise -- simple structured and often at a high tempo. There is a bass, but -- what do you expect? -- hardly recognizable, but one should be glad to hear one at all as Black Metal is often a bass-less zone. The level on which the instruments can be heard varies in the songs, somehow strange, but it has only a little influence on how the music is perceived.

About the tracks: Repetition in the design, but not annoying; linear written, but not disturbing. You can hear that the band has at least some experience, which is reflected in the design and the use of different elements in the structure of the tracks in order to make them more interesting. New elements, variation in riffs and especially the drums are used to create some sort of catchiness. Furthermore the difference in the tempo at the right time does help the listener to be able to follow the band where it is heading towards. Yet a solo or that sort would not a bad thing to be added. The overall impression is this way: the songs are not bad, but could use something that makes it easier to remember them. Sometimes they just pass like the water of the intro and leave nothing behind.

There are some things that are disturbing:
The unbalanced sound does a lot of harm to the music. Especially when it comes to the guitars, it should be mentioned that it is rather odd to merely listening to them on the left speaker; this leaves a deep impression on the listener on the quality of the music and this is fostered if headphones are used. Another aspect of misbalancing lies in the partly dominance of the vocals. Getting the production right would should be an essential part and therefore top priority.

I give 60 points and nothing more. The quality of the demo is good, but the songs lack of some innovative elements or some ideas that makes it easy to remember them. A little bit of this band and a little bit of that, seems to the recipe of The Frost so far. As this is their second release, it is hard to say what their particular style is, especially because the total number of bands in this genre is legion. Yet I have no doubt that this band will take their path.

And at the end the wolves howl again... do they want more points? Perhaps next time.

This was the point where the first review ended first, but now it shall be stretched a little bit further and present to the reader of this text, as well to the fan of the Croatian band The Frost, some more information. What has happened? Kerzakraum re-released the second demo of this band and included the first one; which are three tracks. These shall be discussed in this review now.

The music is different, the sound and the entire atmosphere differ from the succeeding album and preceding tracks. Yet for some special and inexplicable reason the music is quite good, even though nothing more than old-school Black Metal is worshipped. The drum-computer is programmed quite primitive, but quite listenable as it does not differ much from the way a lot of bands tend to play real drums. Similar all of the later music of The Frost do the guitars have a good deal of drive and are able to create a neat and dense atmosphere; despite the existence of only one guitar line which is often quite simple written. With vocals which are quite well performed, I especially like the laughing part on ...Where the wolves paths lead and a good instrumental basis a neat piece of Black Metal had been crafted.

Plainness or too much simplicity can be criticized of course and the fact that the music had been written by one person only cannot be plastered, but nevertheless is the overall perception a positive one. It is not difficult to point to hundreds of releases of other bands from the Black Metal genre, whose releases are far worse and do not reach the quality of this demo, even though several recording have seen the light of day. In Conspiracy With Nature offers ear-catchy Black Metal and together with the second demo Damned and Forgotten the listener gets a pretty god impression of the quality that this band from Croatia possesses. For both releases together 60 points are adequate.