Thulcandra – Under a Frozen Sun (2011)

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Dissection worshipers Thulcandra return with an even more impressive sophomore effort titled “Under a Frozen Sun”. In this release the band takes their amazing Dissection-influenced Death/Black Metal to new heights with seven crushing tracks and one cover song. If you thought that “Fallen Angel’s Dominion” was an excellent release, brace yourself since this new album will rip you a new one.

Opening with “In Blood and Fire”, the band will send shivers through your spine with the acoustic opening guitars. But once the powerful riffing starts, you will be hooked on this album like if it was your drug of choice. Steffen Kummerer does a great job in capturing that peculiar guitar sound from the early Dissection material and makes it his own with Thulcandra’s band of hectic and guitar driven Black/Death Metal.

“Ritual of Sight” delivers a different pace track that oozes of brilliance in terms of the melodic guitars and infernal screams. This song immediately made us start headbanging due to its catchiness. Our favorite track of this release is the emotional “Under a Frozen Sun”, a brilliantly crafted piece that features a perfect balance of melody and harshness. Just before you think things are too melodic, “Aeon of Darkness” explodes with high intensity riffing and a pounding bass guitar line.

With an even more old-school sound, “Echoing Voices” delivers that nostalgic sound that we all used to love from Death/Black Metal bands from the late 90’s, early 2000’s. In terms of monumental, we have “Gates of Eden” and its 9+ minutes of aggression that nicely progress to very melodic and catchy ending passages. The Unanimated cover, “Life Demise” is pretty well carried through and might even sound better than the original version of the song in our opinion.

In general, while Thulcandra might not be 100% original, the band does an excellent job in playing devastating Death/Black Metal like Dissection did. The band’s sound is excellent and their songs are both entertaining and extremely well crafted. If you liked their first album, there is no excuse for now having this new release.

Band: Thulcandra Album: Under a Frozen Sun
Label: Napalm Records

Release: October 4th, 2011

Oficial Site myspace
Genre: Black/Death Metal

Country: Germany

Rating: 89/100
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