The Freezing Fog
March Forth To Victory
Band: The Freezing Fog
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This year is looking like a good year for the freezing fog. Earlier in the year they played an excellent support slot for Boris, orange goblin and solace. Later in the year they will be supporting High on fire. With support slots for these great acts they are gaining positive attention on the stoner underground scene. This album will only enforce the bands rise in stoner circles. Anyone familiar with the member's previous bands (Raucous and Beecher) may be expecting something along the same lines may be disappointed. The Freezing Fog are concentrating on 70s heavy rock worship and a damn good job they do of it.
This is the bands full length debut release. The band has previously released a 7" entitled Solarperplexus. This new album builds on that release to create something bigger and better. The band is influenced by 70s bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Mountain. Favourable comparisons could be made to modern stoner bands such as Orange Goblin, mastodon and Kyuss. However this is not just as straightforward as another 70s clone band they have their own sound going on. The album contains plenty of excellent heavy riffs of the sort you would expect from a band concerned with Sabbath worship. The riffs will be stuck in your head for ages after listening to them. The tunes are accompanied by suitable lyrics. You only have to look at the song titles to know the songs are going to be full of suitable subjects of the occult and darker fantasy suited to the 70s music they are trying to emulate. With song titles like, "The damnation of the high wizard," you know you are in for suitably almighty music. This is not slow tedious doom. It all has a good tempo to it with the album moving along at a good pace. James Longsden's vocals suit the music well. He has a deep husky voice, but all the vocals are clear enough that you can understand every lyric properly. Having seen the band several times I was interested to see how well the bands songs would be captured on CD. The recording quality is very good and the mixing has been done well. Nothing is too high or too low in the mix. They have managed to record the energy of the songs very well. The album kicks in well with the song, "Chimeric Visions". The song starts off with a great opening riff and starts off the whole album well. Right from the beginning you know the direction the music will take for the rest of the album. It's going to be a great ride through more 70s style hard rock. The second track "Crossing the Rubicon" is one of the standout tracks with good beats and rhythms. The third track "damnation of the high wizard" takes the pace down a bit. This is probably the most doom laden song on the album indulging in the slower riffs. The track shows the band can do the doom tracks and a good variety of different stoner influenced genres on an album is always a good thing. "Of hoof and horn" is an atmospheric instrumental which mainly just fills a gap in the album rather than adding much. It does build up an atmosphere for the next track, "the beast of England". This is the longest song lasting over eight minutes. It tells the story of a terrible beast and the despair it's spreading. The long drawn out riffs add to a sense of gloom and despair. "No light, no smoke" takes the pace back up again with an infectious groove to it. The seventh track "the blacksmiths lament" carries this on with another good riff. The song starts off with a fast pace then slows down to a mellower tune before kicking back in towards the end of the song. "Alchemist of the North Star" has plenty of changes of riffs and pace with a slight feel that speed metal riffs have been brought in. The penultimate track "shrouded in fog" is another instrumental building towards the end of the album. The final track "march forth to victory" rounds off the album nicely. The song would be a battle song with mentions of demons, fire, fear, and blood. You could spend time debating what genre this album should be classed as. It has elements of doom and the 70s worship and good stoner riffs, but really it doesn't matter. It's just a solid enjoyable heavy rock album. Exact definitions just aren't needed.
Joshua Johnson
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