Negative Frame – Break The Ice Review

I first heard about Negative Frame after a fellow music nerd on Threads posted ahead of the release of Break The Ice, claiming how good the new album is. These endorsements often go over my head, but there was something about this that caught my attention – and for good reason. This album is a classic metalcore curveball in a world of flashy layered guitars and digital processing.

If you ever wondered what it’d sound like if early Parkway Drive joined forces with Killswitch Engage and started playing Shadows Fall covers, then wonder no more, as Negative Frame have managed to capture elements of each to create something uniquely modern while sounding tastefully old-school without being forced.

This album actually came as a surprise to me because many talk about Negative Frame alongside metallic hardcore, and while there are some hardcore elements present, there’s way more mid-2000s metalcore present in Break The Ice, so much so that when a song popped up in my new music playlist, I had to stop for a second. There was something about this band that felt familiar but also a breath of fresh air at the same time.

Break The Ice feels like a record released in the 2000s with a distinctly melodic metalcore and thrashy twang. Think Parkway‘s Killing with a Smile, or Killswitch‘s Alive or Just Breathing. From the palm-muted gallops, the thrash metal solos, pinched harmonics, and the massive power chords, it feels distinctly old-school, and it’s actually quite refreshing.

One thing that did raise an eyebrow, though, is the uncanny similarities between some riffs on the album. The middle guitar riff in the track 9 Circles, for example, felt a little too close to the intro to Parkway Drive‘s Anasasis (Xenophontis). Then there’s the drum/guitar intro to Sorrow & Solitude, which is a lot like the heavier intro part to Metallica‘s Battery. Sure, we’re definitely at a point where it’s likely every combination of note, riff, melody, and chord progression has been done before, but at times it felt a little like Negative Frame‘s influences were on show a little too obviously.

Aside from this, though, the album stands well on its own and is certainly the band’s exploration in everything metal. As well as the aforementioned melodic metalcore, there are thrash metal elements, some groove metal, nu-metal, and even a touch of alt-metal. Despite the smorgasbord of musical influences, Break The Ice remains a solidly coherent album, as the band blends these influences with their own metallic hardcore sound.

For me, Break the Ice was a bit of a slow burn. While I enjoyed the album on first listen, it wasn’t after repeated listens, or hearing some of the tracks in among a shuffle, that it really stood out to me as something to pay attention to. That’s not to say it’s not a good album; it just took a little while for it to really grab my attention, but when it did, it became an album in regular rotation. I thoroughly enjoy the old-school elements more so than some of the metal released today. It honestly feels like no one writes this type of stuff any more, which is a bit of a bummer.

But hey, at least we have Negative Frame, right?