Frosthelm: Pyrrhic (2019)

Hailing from the frozen wastes of North Dakota, Frosthelm takes their cues from such frost-bitten black metal bands as Immortal, with a little bit of Skeletonwitch thrown in for good measure.  And given that their first album was titled The Endless Winter, Frosthelm is definitely steering into the skid.  Plus, this is one of the best album covers of the year.

As alluded to earlier, Frosthelm's sound is built around influences from second wave Norwegian black metal bands with a fair amount of European-style thrash metal thrown in.  The music is fast-paced and aggressive with swirling, cold riffs.  And the vocals are delivered in an icy rasp that would make Abbath proud.  The songs are generally fairly lengthy, throwing a variety of different riffs at the listener.  That keeps things interesting and makes the album well worth the listen.

This is another one of those random albums I picked up on Bandcamp recently.  It is a very impressive album and one would be forgiven for thinking this was a band from Norway in the mid 1990's.  It is downright shocking that something like this would come from North Dakota, which is not exactly a metal hotbed.  Of course I should talk, living in Northeast Nebraska.  But if something this impressive can come from North Dakota, I guess location really does not matter.