Style: Post-hardcore, Djent, Progressive metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ghost Atlas, Hail the Sun, Eidola, Daniel Tompkins
Review by: Doug
Country: UK
Release date: 2 September, 2022
I have no doubt that every person who’s ever taken on a creative endeavor that spans multiple periods of their life has struggled with measuring their current work against their past creations. Performing in a musical group adds an extra layer to this internal competition as lineups shift, and a band today may sound entirely different today compared to their prior albums. First Signs Of Frost specifically must contend with the legacy left by Daniel Tompkins (Tesseract), the band’s prior singer for their cult hit debut LP Atlantic. While no doubt his former association continues to garner attention for the band, now reunited under a new lineup, despite trying to approach Anthropocene on its own terms I struggle not to keep coming back to both comparisons to the older and more exciting album with Tompkins at center stage and to the acclaim piled upon Tesseract during FSOF’s hiatus.
My core dissatisfaction with Anthropocene is that I don’t know what part is supposed to excite me. Hardcore punk and its descendent genres are constructed around driving, in-your-face, at times hostile energy, but this album rarely manifests that kind of energy despite the harsh vocals sprinkled throughout. Progressive music likewise focuses on deep and complex compositions, but FSOF don’t embrace that ethos much aside from incorporating rhythmic variations through syncopation and changing time signatures. With those genre elements missing, I feel lost when I listen to this album, lacking any anchor point to which I can attach my attention and enjoyment.
As a whole, Anthropocene is passable, but includes few moments of standout musical talent. Ronan Villiers’s vocal performance displays limited range and doesn’t carry much melody, which is not unusual for post-hardcore music, but I find Villiers’s voice especially flat-toned compared many of his peers. The guitars and drums serve almost exclusively as rhythm and background, and don’t compensate well for the vocal flatness; the emotional content only really comes through when there are sufficient elements layered together (such as in “Relics”) to add the collective depth that prog is known for. While there’s little that I would single out as being actively bad, at the same time nothing quite stands on its own or displays a spark of excellence.
One other factor which might counterintuitively contribute to this lack of excitement is the stylistic variety across the album. Most tracks, like “White Flag” or “The Brave,” draw mostly from the standard hardcore influences, but there’s also “Þingvellir” which takes a softer approach more along the lines of a ballad, and the two-part title track which…well, I’m not totally sure what it’s trying to accomplish, but it definitely is different. While this variety of styles helps spice up the listening experience somewhat, it also makes it harder for the album to build momentum and invite the listener’s investment, further softening the impact of the less-than-exciting tone of the performance as a whole.
First Signs Of Frost, standing in the company of a renowned musician of the progressive scene, face the unenviable task of trying to make their way in the musical world after a long hiatus and with much less accumulated recognition of their own. Despite sharing half the personnel – including the primary songwriter – with their breakout release, Anthropocene falls well short of reprising the captivating energy that earned Atlantic its audience in the first place.
Recommended tracks: Relics, The Brave
You may also like: Mercury Sky, Gospel, Branch Arterial
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Alaskan Records – Website | Facebook
First Signs Of Frost is:
– Ronan Villiers (vocals)
– Owen Hughes-Holland (guitars, vocals)
– Adam Mason (guitars)
– Alex Harford (drums)
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