Band: FROZEN WREATH
Country: Hungary
Title: Memento Mori
Label: Filosofem Records
Year: 2021
Style: Black Metal

Review:
New Black Metal duo from Hungary made of two musicians from killer bands (really, check them out!) like De Profundis, Witcher or Vrag, Frozen Wreath was founded in 2020 and after a couple of singles here's them debuting with the first full-length album, an 8 tracks effort pushing it over 40 minutes of playing time. Contrary to my expectations we get here a pretty brutal, rough, organic type of Black Metal of Norwegian inspiration (second wave of NBM), including some melodic passages here and there and some other that are more Doom-driven passages (at times even Funeral Doom-driven) that I find a bit dull to be honest. The inserts of poetry and some melancholic parts leads my thought to a period piece (early XXth century Austro-Hungarian empire) maybe mostly due to the recitation and piano used, but that's just my impression, I'm pretty sure they had no intention of recreating that atmosphere. All in all we're dealing here with a mostly fast-paced, rugged, dense, organic sounding early Black Metal record apparently dedicated to a fiend of the band who passed away in 2020 at only 40 years of age. Not an outstanding material, but one that can surely stand tall of its ideas without any shame, and for a debut album I'd say it says much about these two guys' abilities. From now on it will be about bringing in as much hooks and personal touches as possible, and here I would recommend taking the path opened by the title-track, the best one on the album in my opinion; hope they won't fold after this album. Released by Filosofem on both jewel-case CD and cassette in limited edition I guess; not sure if the tape too, but the CD booklet features the lyrics in both Hungarian as sung, and English for non-native listeners to understand the concept, pretty cool!
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 7.5/10

Contact:
frozenwreath.bandcamp.com

Review to be published in the upcoming issue of Slowly We Rot print magazine!