Album review: Hail Of Bullets – … Of Frost And War

Death metal is known for its concept albums, and as befits a “supergroup” of the genre, Hail Of Bullets have picked a suitably rich seam of material to mine for inspiration. Few periods of history can include more death, destruction and sheer human waste as the conflict on the Eastern Front during the Second World War, which is the inspiration behind … Of Frost And War.

Much as the campaign did for the German soldiery, … Of Frost And War begins with measured Teutonic calm, stately synthesizers evoking a sense of epic tragedy not yet glimpsed in full. Then, leaping out behind the squeak and rattle of tank tracks, Hail of Bullets set forth with martial percussion and the most scraping and evil chord work I’ve heard in a long time on “Ordered Eastward”, which soon switches to double-time drumming beneath the doom-laden chord progression and gut-shot vocals.

From here on in, Hail Of Bullets deliver all the horror and brutality of mechanised warfare transformed into musical form, mirroring the clash of two dictatorial ideologies that were more similar than they cared to admit, an uncaring political process that turned men into rotting meat, thousands at a time. … Of Frost And War is not a cheery album, then; but its evocation of the grinding terror of war is astonishingly powerful, even more so for its avoidance of daft pseudo-Satanist imagery and easy marketing tricks in favour of sheer sonic force.

… Of Frost And War sounds quite unlike a lot of the death metal you’d hear labelled as such at the moment, but that’s not due to any particular innovatory moves of the part of Hail Of Bullets. Indeed, the most innovatory thing the band has done is to step back to the roots of the death metal sound when it was still a marginal and much maligned subculture as opposed to the big-money industry it is now.

That sound is a deafeningly heavy wall of guitar and bass, mixed to sound like the grinding of heavy machinery; stately marching-pace drumming that leaps into vast artillery-like rolls or hammering snare attacks, and vocals delivered like the dying screams and bellows of a combat-crazed Wehrmacht officer. Hail Of Bullets are intimately acquainted with this classic sound, as they have appeared as members of Pestilence, Bolt Thrower, Gorefest and Thanatos – this is no Johnny-come-lately outfit.

The sheer listenability of … Of Frost And War emphasises this point. Death metal done badly is everything its detractors accuse it of – a pyrrhic triumph of style over substance, a noise made for the sake of making noise.

In defiance of such non-efforts, Hail Of Bullets have written actual songs here – and while they’re not the sort of thing you average radio listener is going to get into easily, they have a level of accessibility unusual in the field. The magnificent martial melodies, the relentless lumbering of the rhythms … it’s as stirring as it is bleak and oppressive.

And it’s surprisingly memorable. The hooks and riffs from … Of Frost And War stick in your ear long after the album ends, and considering the deliberately inhospitable style that’s quite an achievement. Hail Of Bullets threaten to mow down all the competition – and given the amount of cannon-fodder on the battlefield at the moment, they’ve arrived not a moment too soon.