CREEPING DEATH

Texas death metal up-and-comers bring comfort and the cold

AT LONG LAST, the weather is getting warmer and the days are getting longer again, but that’s not the type of scenery that Frozen Soul deal in. Dallas–Fort Worth’s ice-obsessed death metallers are about to arrive onstage at the Underworld and thrust London back into the throes of winter.

Before that, though, the “warm-up” (ironically enough) comes from fellow Texans CREEPING DEATH. The Denton destroyers outdid themselves last year with their incensed second album, Boundless Domain, and in the flesh the material is even more pulverising. An already-packed Underworld excitedly swirls and headbangs throughout these 45 minutes, motivated into motion by music that mixes death metal’s heaviness with the breakdowns and chugalong riffs of vintage thrash. It’s a fusion that clearly has its fans, given that this becomes one of the rare occasions where the support band draws a bigger crowd than the headliners.

While the attendance may thin just a slither for FROZEN SOUL, the passion of those who remain stays at a fever pitch. Early in the set, vocalist Chad Green orders everyone to mosh around the column at the centre of the auditorium, and they quickly and gleefully oblige. This quintet’s music is deserving of such a vigorous response, too. With their idols including the groove-laden likes of Bolt Thrower and Obituary, they hurl London back to death metal at its most bouncy and primal.

There is some sweetness amid all of that raw aggression, though. In speeches throughout the set, Chad is eager to espouse the benefits of maintaining good mental health –a message that feels especially important and earnest when he reveals that his younger brother, Cory, passed away last year. It’s an admirable display of vulnerability in a genre that, historically, has valued brutality and sickening imagery over sensitivity. Also lifting Frozen Soul above and beyond the also-rans is their commitment to their gimmick. The band adore roaring about the cold (their albums are called Crypt Of Ice and Glacial Domination, after all), and during Invisible Tormentor they double down, using a smoke machine to blast flakes of ‘snow’ throughout the venue.