I remember how Frightful from Gdańsk started. Pretty nice oldschool death metal with some grindcore influences (especially from Terrorizer). Great riffs, great songs, great gigs and absolutely horrible production, that efficiently ruined the final outcome.

            Their latest material, Astral Freeze changed the previous tendencies a bit. Everything sounds a way better than ever. New material has been recorded in Warsaw (in Przychodnia, a cult punk squot) and mixed in Gdańsk.The vocals also gained more depth and overall evil feeling.

Everything sounds more oldschool and raw now (finally, snare sounds like a snare). Unfortunately, most of the grindcore influences were replaced by black metal, which turned a promising band into one of many black/death bands that still has to find it’s own identitiy. Don’t get me wrong- Astral Freeze is a really nice material, with some great death metal riffs and ideas. I just can’t get out of the feeling, that guys are still searching for their own style. Especially that this EP shows only three songs (and one of them is a cover). So far it’s obvious that this band is going through some serious musical evolution, but it’s hard to predict where there are going to end.

Frightful for sure shows some great potential (which may be even greater as shortly after recording Astral Freeze they found a second guitarist) and some really nice ideas. And even if I prefer songs from older materials, Frightful still has something to say. Let’s see how they will develop in the future.

7/10 Wojciech Michalak