REVIEW: Frozen Soul - No Place of Warmth
- Jasmine Longhurst
- May 4
- 3 min read
The masters of old school death metal worship FROZEN SOUL are back and ready to get nasty. New record No Place of Warmth is all but upon us, so here’s a look into the next stage of life for the Dallas five piece.
Opening into the pummelling title track, FROZEN SOUL have pulled all the stops out and, on this introduction to the album, have managed to coerce the iconic Gerard Way of MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE to come and spew vitriolic verse. His black metal style is a fantastic departure from what we know him for, and harks back to his feature on TRIVIUM’s Matt Heafy’s solo album. The iciness that consumes their sound is felt in buckets here, and pervades the whole album from top to bottom.
Straight into another feature, track two Invoke War brings in the California bruisers MACHINE HEAD for a stomping, gurn-inducing, death metal rollick. With rolling blast beats and bottom heavy riffs aplenty, it’s great fun - or at least, as much fun as a seething song about hatred and violence ever can be. It’s followed up by a short little song that very accurately describes the average temperature of the music this band produces - Absolute Zero - before we move right into the last feature on the album, with SANGUISUGABOGG joining the fray on Dreadnought. The punishment doesn’t stop here, as of course the mighty ‘BOGG bring the pain to match up to the heft of FROZEN SOUL, and the pair size up excellently on this fourth track.
Moving further into the depths of the album comes Chaos Will Reign, Eyes of Despair and Ethereal Dreams. The first of these is one of the slower moments on the album, with a more menacing atmosphere than much of what’s come - however Eyes of Despair follows up with a positively machine gun-esque aggression and pace, ripping through the listener’s ears with shredding guitars and the blast beats to match. Ethereal Dreams takes some time to warm up, but the razor-sharp tone of FROZEN SOUL’s guitars cuts right down to the bone from the moment it gets going.
After a brief semi-interlude track in Skinned by the Wind, we’re back to the full length tracks with DEATHWEAVER - a proper stomping death metal piece, with all the heft and weight of the best of 90’s death metal. Frost Forged feels a little more modern in its structure and pacing, but is still ultimately (much like most FROZEN SOUL tunes) an overt homage to old school death metal; if packaged a little differently. The finale brings about one of the silliest song titles the band have had in some time - but Killin Time (Until its Time to Kill) doesn’t just have a great name, it’s also a strong finish that’s got all the piss and vinegar and ridiculous distorted heaviness any death metal fan would want to round off an album.
Before anything else, it must be noted that this album doesn’t feel like an evolution so much as a refinement. It’s still a great LP, and still contains everything you would typically desire of a good FROZEN SOUL record, but it doesn’t build upon previous work and find greener pastures so much as carve away at the glacier of before to make for a slightly sharper project. All that said, No Place of Warmth is a relentless exercise in aggression and absolutely worth listening to in its entirety - just don’t go expecting the next wave of modern death metal.
Score: 8/10
No Place of Warmth will be released on May 8th 2026 via Century Media Records.
Words: Jasmine Longhurst
Photos: Kate Russell
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