Review by Tony Gaskin

Confident debut album from Black Country Melodic Metalcore outfit.

Extreme metal has always been associated with the dark satanic mills of the West Midlands so it’s no surprise that the region keeps pumping out ambitious and driven young bands set on keeping the tradition alive.

One such band is Frozen Theory, a six piece outfit who slot nicely into the melodic metalcore genre.

Fronted by the hugely imposing double act of Jamie Smith and Tom Knight on vocal duties, the band displays some great technical abilities which are a must for this powerful brand of metal.

The album opens up with an unexpected piece of electronica, which I can see being a great live intro for the band, before the drum triggers kick in and we’re thrown head first into “Blood in the Water” which serves to show the full arsenal of weapons this band has the use of. Some intricate guitar riffs from the immensely talented Sam are backed up by the excellent Rob Bonnell wielding the other six string and solid bass lines from David Plimmer.

These all serve the purpose of laying the foundation for the double barrel assault of Jamie and Tom, with Jamie providing the clean vocals and occasional growls, and Tom backing up with the Grindcore growls.

Strongest tracks for me are the aforementioned “Blood In The Water” and title track “Freedom is an Illusion” both with excellent melodic roots, but brutal enough to keep the die hards happy, and “Wolves” which I think will prove to be very messy on the dance floor!!

Well thought out structures to the songs result in a balanced album with breakdowns and solos in all the right places, proving that this young outfit has come a long way in the eighteen months or so from when I first came across them. A good solid debut album then. Still a bit rough round the edges, but showing great promise, I think I’d prefer more clean vocals from Jamie, but that’s a personal choice and takes nothing away from the overall quality. Production is a bit of a let down though with the drums and bass getting lost in the mix occasionally, but I may have to revise this statement when I get my hands on the proper CD. This review was based on mp3’s converted from m4a’s so quality does suffer.

7/10