(written by Islander)
The music of the band Frozen Ocean (the solo work of Vaarwel) could broadly be characterized as a melding of depressive rock and atmospheric black metal. Its musical output has been prolific: Frozen Ocean has released 11 albums and a variety of shorter works since 2005. Yet there’s been a significant interval between full-lengths since 2015’s Prills of Remembrance. Now a new Frozen Ocean album named Askdrömmar is finally on the way, with a release date of February 13th set by the Apocalyptic Witchcraft label.
In its previous releases Frozen Ocean has thematically explored a wide range of subjects and inspirations. The new album draws inspiration from the writing of John Ajvide Lindqvist and the music of Lifelover, with lyrics written entirely in Swedish. Its themes are described on behalf of the label this way:
City dwellers have all sensed the life, the power, the autonomous identity of their home. They understand, on some deeply buried level, that it is more than a collection of buildings and intersecting streets… it is an entity beyond its elements, a tarnished, hungry god with a character that changes with the setting of the sun and the flickering into life of the street lights and neon signs.
They know there is another world, a darkly different reality that lies behind a thin veil of perception; held in check only by a silently agreed refusal to believe in its existence. But a glimpse from the corner of the eye, a movement in the shadows not rejected and quickly forgotten and the door to that other city begins to stand ajar. And with Askdrömmar, Frozen Ocean are holding that door open and beckoning you inside….
What we have for you today is the premiere of the album’s second single released so far — “Bortkastade dödsrunor” — and the engrossing but disturbing video made for it. In the album’s running order, the song comes second. The opening track is “Mångata“, which seems to translate as “Many streets”.
With ambient tones both vaporous and ringing, that song creates a haunting atmosphere, but it then gets muscles moving with growling bass-throbs and neck-cracking beats that have a post-punk groove. Frozen Ocean continues to add layers, introducing brightly bouncing keys, grim sizzling guitars, and heavy slashing chords. As these things happen, the song’s mood has gradually grown darker and more menacing, just in time for furious rasping snarls to cut loose.
The music seems to expand and elevate, and filaments of glistening melody appear, but the song maintains its compulsive, throbbing groove. At the end, a woman conversationally speaks in Swedish.
That album opener presents an intriguing mix of genre ingredients, and so does the song we’re now premiering, which comes next on the album. “Bortkastade dödsrunor” opens with a quick piano instrumental and then starts heavily pounding and abrasively pulsing, with the harsh vocals arriving quickly this time. Like the opening song, this one includes a compulsive groove, mid-paced and weighty this time, but Frozen Ocean also adds shimmering and fluid melodies in the upper reaches, and they sound distressing as they wail.
Suddenly the song changes, creating a slowly flowing phase of musing and melancholy ambience, but with what sounds like fevered bowing tones in the mix. A thumping and skipping beat joins in along with picked notes, and then the song blooms again, reintroducing the piano melody, swaths of throbbing riffage, expansive synths, and another burst of snarling fury.
Overall, the mood of the song seems distraught and indeed depressive, sometimes lonely and sometimes desperate. Thoughts of Lifelover do come to mind, and both the song’s rhythms and its melodies get under the skin and stay there.
About the song and the accompanying video, we also have a few important statements to share from Vaarwel:
The music video completely follows the message covered in the song’s lyrics — that the more social interactions overwhelm, especially in overpopulated areas, the less humane they become. The price of human itself and its life, in terms of attitude, decreases to zero, and this scheme with obituaries printed on flyers is mere illustration. Like people witness a real tragedy, a human being passed whose fate and life are printed on these flyers, and then accept these as a usual nuisance: ignore, crush and throw these away, or with indifference at best. The image of the city here is an epitome of decomposition of everything, especially spiritual and personal, and the simple tragedy of the main character is a single illustration.
Speaking of production, the intention was to make a full-scale music video, a short movie, completely by modern AI means, with a large percent of inevitable post-production, of course. Thus we got many things that wouldn’t be accessible for us by means of traditional video filming and production.
There are two characters in the music video (the short film) that are based on the appearance of real people: The main heroine Katarina that is based on the appearance of my wife Anne, and the guy in the khaki green jacket with flyers at the very end of the music video, based on my friend and fellow musician Sergey Epitaph. All of these people gave their permission of their appearance to be used as the foundation for characters of the movie, and moreover, they asked about that. =) Especially Anne, she always wanted to “star” in a MV, and that was the opportunity.
The real people involved in the production are also credited in the end of the movie. ALL THE REST of the faces in the music video are 100% generated and NOT based on the appearances of real people without any exceptions, and any similarity is mere coincidence.
Askdrömmar features artwork by Mosaeye Art (The Hearth Of Discordia, Shiningstar, Pyre, etc). It will be released by Apocalyptic Witchcraft on February 13th on digipak CD, cassette tape, and digital formats, as well as in an exclusive, extremely limited boxed set. They recommend the album for fans of Lifelover, Katatonia, Apati, and Joyless.
Below the following links we’ve also included a stream of the album’s first single, “Jag sover“, which is the song that follows “Bortkastade dödsrunor” in the running order.
PRE-ORDER:
https://orcd.co/apw056
https://frozenoceanrus.bandcamp.com/album/askdr-mmar
FROZEN OCEAN:
https://www.facebook.com/frozenoceanrus