Frozen Ocean – Steamworks: Hibernation (2009)

Limited to a short run of 62 CD-R copies, Frozen Ocean presents us with their 2009 EP titled: “Steamworks: Hibernation”. With a behemoth 30+ minutes song, this release is a good stepping stone into understanding the band’s evolution and how Vaarwel’s skills have been changing over time. With a constant stream of releases Frozen Ocean is one of the most active bands we have heard of, so it is nice to hear a bit more from their musical origins.

Immediately starting with some droning percussions, the album has that unsettling vibe with a martial touch to it. The atmosphere is quite heavy and tense as it slowly builds up. The ritualistic percussions are quite interesting and give it a different vibe to what we have heard in the past from Frozen Ocean. As the song mellows out around the 20th minute, some of the tension gets released and we can finally move over from the edge of our seat.

While not our favorite release from Frozen Ocean, “Steamworks” as a whole is a pretty interesting album with a certain industrial vibe (as in industrial warehouse, not the genre) thanks to the percussions and the overall feel of it. As a stepping stone, this EP shows how far the band has come over the last few years and releases, making it a critical piece in any fans of the band’s discography. We can highly recommend this ultra-limited release for any person that likes dark and eerie atmospheric music, or just likes to collect very rare releases.

Label: Operator Produkzion

Release: May 2009

Genre: Dark Ambient/Drone

Country: Russia