It’s been a fair few years since we’ve heard the name First Signs Of Frost batted around these parts. Eight years on from their last recorded material, and after two years of planning, moulding and crafting their long overdue comeback, London’s exporters of the finest tech metal are back and more melodic than ever before. Yet does ‘The Shape Of Things To Come’ live up to the legacy that precedes it?

Replacing someone with the range that ex-vocalist Dan Tompkins (now making his coin fronting Tesseract) had was never going to be straightforward, but ex-All Forgotten man Dan Lawrence does a spectacular job on these five tracks of glorious riffing. The band have found the atmosphere dial on the control pad and turned it up to 11 with the likes of opener ‘Meat Week’ and the deep set ‘Atlantis’ feeling like a cold wind draping itself around your shoulders.

On the other end of the spectrum the tight knit fret tapping of ‘White Flag’ and ‘Sharks’ add a layer of gritty heaviness to proceedings. It all makes for an EP of technically brilliant and thoroughly stirring tech metal that is as accessible as it is fantastically niche.

First Signs Of Frost have come from the edge of infinity and pulled off a miraculous recovery with this EP. Not content with just being forgotten, the band have put together all of their previous experiences, held them together with a gorgeously stirring bow and come out the other end in a stronger, more ambitious position than they have ever been in. The future may still seem uncertain but based on the contents of ‘The Shape Of Things To Come’, it’s certainly going to be an explosive ride.

3/5

‘The Shape Of Things To Come’ by First Signs Of Frost is released on 11th August on Basick Records.

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Words by Jack Rogers (@JackMRog)