Shades of hope flicker amongst the sadness, savagery and sludge on London-based hardcore crew Negative Frame’s superb debut
Plenty of hardcore bands talk up the sorrow and depression undercutting their music, yet few capture it as captivatingly as Negative Frame. Coloured by themes of mental health and suicide prevention, and grounded in experiences like the loss of vocalist Kesari Gorin’s best friend aged 18 and disability linked to bilateral congenital talipes, long-awaited debut Break The Ice comes wreathed in darkness.
Speaking to Kerrang! recently, the London-based crew talked up big, old-school influences Thin Lizzy and Iron Maiden, but many of the reference-points here are far less entry-level than that. Gorgeous acoustic lament Heavens Blue, for instance, calls to mind peak Alice In Chains, while the rich guitar harmonies at the end of Cut Throat invoke Yorkshire doom legends My Dying Bride.
Those flourishes are in the minority, but they’re invaluable in throwing the record’s more propulsive main body into fascinating contrast. Both eerily percussive intro Samsara and first track proper 9 Circles are effectively instrumental, the latter chucking in a few snarls but mostly laying out the compositional blend of swashbuckling 2000s metalcore bludgeoning 2020s hardcore. After which, shapeshifting epic New Lows comes on like a punishing spiral into and back out of some tortured psyche, while Sorrow & Solitude takes in a moment of Crowbar's agonised sludge.
Pivotally, the bigger picture is one of defiance rather than capitulation. The full-throttle Cold Nights and suffocatingly heavy Rat Trap may be constructed from shadow and ice, but they’re delivered with huge energy and cathartic relish. That radical album artwork, too, destined to be copied on the bottom of a hundred skateboards, is emphatically good fun. And, more than anything, the final escalation where a galloping Part Of Me ramps up into grandstanding closer Another Way is shattering proof that the only way out is through.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: Malevolence, Guilt Trip, Killswitch Engage
Break The Ice is released on August 7 via Blood Blast.
