Every year at Bloodstock there is one band that rocks the whole weekend from over on the New Blood Stage. From the 2023 installment of the festival, it was absolutely To Obey A Tyrant. These were personally amongst the top 5 bands of the weekend at that time, when they had just released previous effort Omnimalevolent. The group have hit the Millions Club in the streaming world, as well as toured with some of the most established names in the deathcore and extreme metal world. Now, via Seek and Stike, they have bestowed, or unleashed depending on your perspective, their new EP, Frigore Inferni, which is available for listening now. Here?s what you can expect:
First things first, the name translates to ?The Cold of Hell?/?Freezing Hell?, which given Tyrant?s black metal influence instantly calls to mind legends in the genre like Mayhem and the similarly named ?Freezing Moon? single. Also, Latin in your metal is just my favourite flavour. The EP itself is layered in immense lore, which is apparent from the opening instrumentals of ?I, Apollyon?. It starts with a deep and brooding string arrangement but immediately drops into a cacophony of tinny Black Metal drumming and some heavily phlegmy deathcore vocals. Lyrically the trac is absolutely bursting with story, as the EP focuses on a war of two spirits during the apocalypse. As the title of the EP would suggest, hell has frozen over, and this is the soundtrack to it. This feels like the benchmark for a lot of black metal leaning tracks, where they start with some earache, and then season in the backstory to taste, and its beautifully heavy.