EP Review: To Obey A Tyrant - Frigore Inferni
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Symphonic Black Metal and Deathcore do not, on the surface at least, good bedfellows make, but Bournemouth based quintet, To Obey a Tyrant’s new EP, Frigore Inferni - or cold hell if you’ve not been keeping up with your Latin – looks to change that opinion with six blistering slices of brutality, hewn from both genres.
Following on from the Conjuring Damnation debut in 2019 and the Omnimalevolent full-length of 2022 – which saw the band earn a spot on the New Blood stage at Bloodstock 2023, ripping it up with the likes of Street Soldier and Voidwalker – the band’s new release is a thirty-minute tale of two opposing, yet equally destructive, entities.
Each entity is represented by either Deathcore or Black Metal, and this allows the bands to switch between the styles in a story-telling sense; and, jarring as it may sound, it’s a trick To Obey a Tyrant manage to musically accomplish with aplomb.
I, Apollyon starts with deep and oppressive strings, accompanied by classical chants and militaristic drums. Huge, symphonic swells bring to mind Dimmu Borgir, the weighty low-end Whitechapel. Vocalist Brandon Singleton’s performance here is a schizophrenic one, jumping from demonic screams to grunting pig squeals and back again. Swirling, vast soundscapes meet brutal beat downs, as guitarists John Rushton and James Meade conjure incantations from their instruments.
Obsidian Sol opens like a Satanic liturgy, as some invisible infernal choir compete with the excoriating vocals and ripping transitions. Bruno Clay’s percussion is nothing short of heroic across the whole record and rhythm partner, bassist Harvey Hockey, has the unenviable and unsung task of holding it all together.
If the first two tracks are the opening gambits, then Dawnbreaker is the place were opposing forces meet and clash. The symphonic opening drives headlong into a fat low end, pig squeal vocals vie with demonic screams as the genres begin to bleed into each other.
Both parties are allowed to state their case, the title track sees the forces of – I assume – Hell making their petition; largely in a black metal style, but not without its deathcore influences, Frigore Inferni eschews the image of hell as a blazing inferno, adopting the more solitary damnation of Dante’s tenth circle. Here, frozen in the ice, you’ll find remnants of some classic rock lines and the most fragile of guitar parts.
Prince Ov Death, though underscored by the symphonic, is a distinctly deathcore dominated; it’s grunts and breakdowns are solid punches to the face and gut. The story reaches it conclusion on closing tune, Winter’s Rite, which finds the forces of the black metal side nearing victory. Staccato riffing competes with swirling operatic parts, the final act before conquest is assured. Power Metal elements creep in during this closing moments and, like the bearing away of the vanquished at the end of a Shakespearean tragedy, a melancholic, mournful piano dirge brings the EP to an end.
Frigore Inferni doesn’t have to be listened to for its story as it works equally as well as a standalone series of half-a-dozen expectation-shattering tracks that show a young band with the bit between their teeth ready to open up the pits and close walls of death. However you choose to listen to it is great, as long as you’re listening to it.
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