Band:	Frostmoon Eclipse
Album:	Death Is Coming
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	2003
A review by:	jupitreas

01. The Darkest Season Of Humanity
02. Wolves Are Hungry
03. The Black Tide
04. Funeral
05. World In Ruin
06. In A Sea Of Blood
07. Blindness
08. Waiting For The Storm

Frostmoon Eclipse's Death Is Coming is a very decent black metal album that does not bore me or exhaust me. This is quite an achievement considering the black metal scene of today is becoming increasingly stale. Don't get me wrong though - on this album Frostmoon Eclipse are not being really innovative or groundbreaking. They are simply very good at what they do, which is playing nimble and accomplished black metal in vein of Immortal, Marduk and early Satyricon.

I think we all know by now the defining elements of the style known as black metal - the high pitch 'troll' shrieks, the endless use of blastbeats on the drums, the 'cold' tremolo guitar riffing and the almost complete inaudibility of the bass. Frostmoon Eclipse has got all of these things and they use them well. They also actually use a fairly pleasant sounding bass, which is easily picked out from the mix (for a change) and adds to the dynamics of the music. The band also has an 'emotional' side on this album and luckily, it is not manifested by haphazardly pasting inappropriate keyboard passages onto the music. Instead, the band uses acoustic elements tastefully throughout the album.

The songwriting is uniformly excellent throughout Death Is Coming. The songs improve in the same order as they appear in the tracklist as the band chose to include the simplest tracks in the beginning and leave the almost progressive, sophisticated pieces to the end. The final song, "Waiting For The Storm" is by far the best track on the album as it combines all of the band's best traits into one blistering inferno of riffs, with those acoustic passages making numerous appearances. The production of the music is excellent throughout as, while the instruments are all clearly audible and distinguishable, the band was still able to retain that cold and grim sound that is so crucial to black metal.

In the end, I can't really think of anything negative to say about this album besides that it is not groundbreaking or significantly innovative. The songwriting is ultimately what keeps the music interesting; however, I wish the band would explore their more adventurous side even more. This is average black metal but played with a very high level of competence.