Freeze to Death With Frozen Soul This Weekend

Hypothermia can lead to death within minutes if conditions are harsh enough, particularly in temperatures of minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The normal internal temperature of a human is 98.6 degrees F, but if it quickly drops below 95 degrees, the heart struggles to pump blood throughout the body’s extensive cardiovascular system. Breathing slows, numbness and confusion set in, and a person who is slowly freezing to death falls into eternal slumber as the cold conquers the flesh.

Frozen Soul, a Fort Worth, Texas, death-metal band, is obsessed with such a fatal fate and has made a chilling name for itself with songs like “Crypt of Ice” and the new single “Glacial Domination,” featuring Trivium vocalist and guitarist Matthew Heafy.

“Glacial Domination,” which is off the band’s upcoming record of the same name (set for release May 19, on Century Media), clocks in at just under four minutes, or about the same amount of time it would take to succumb to hypothermia if you were left exposed to unforgiving Ice Age elements.

“Feel the freeze, lungs seize, shivering, suffocating, foresee, you’ll be dragged down to your knees, dragged down, freeze,” Frozen Soul vocalist Chad Green growls on the title track.

It’s hard not to feel just that when listening to “Glacial Domination” for the first time, but successfully conveying such a sense of dread is what makes Frozen Soul one of the hottest new death-metal bands.

Founding guitarist Michael Munday explains that the name Frozen Soul is an homage to Metallica song “Trapped Under Ice,” and says it quickly caught on whenever the group played it locally.

“Me and Chad were listening to Metallica’s ‘Trapped Under Ice’ one day, and there’s that one line, ‘Frozen soul, frozen down to the core, break the ice, I can’t take anymore,'” he recalls. “We had a whole list of band names, and none of them really stuck, but we heard ‘frozen soul’ and were like, ‘That’s it right there.’ We dappled with it a little bit, and all of our homies in the DFW scene were just cracking jokes and making memes, and it just kind of caught on – and we went headfirst into it.”

Frozen Soul is bringing its brand of frostbitten metal to Denver on Sunday, May 7, at Summit Music Hall. The Black Dahlia Murder, Terror, Fuming Mouth and Phobophilic are also on the bill.

The band, which includes guitarist Chris Bonner, bassist Samantha Mobley and drummer Matt Dennard, has mastered the “old school death metal” sounds of older acts like Bolt Thrower and Grave since forming in 2018. While Frozen Soul’s lyrics aren’t exclusively winter-related – there are some war and dark magic themes, as well – the quartet’s stone-cold tone and penchant for conjuring chilling riffs befits the ambience it’s built up.

Munday credits Metallica frontman James Hetfield for the inspiration behind more than just the band’s name.

“James Hetfield has always been one of my biggest inspirations. I have always been more of a riff guy and not a shredder. Also, songwriting, too. I always wanted to write killer-ass riffs and killer songs,” he says of Hetfield’s talent for creating catchy guitar rhythms. “I never cared for doing super-fast shreddy shit and things like that. With Bolt Thrower, too, they write really good songs that are fucking grooving, and the riffs stay stuck in your head. That’s why I like that all so much.”

Heafy also produced Glacial Domination, which Munday says led to more of a collaborative songwriting process between bandmates than previous albums and brought out the best in Frozen Soul.

“We knew we wanted the album to be a little bit more dynamic than the previous one, and I think we accomplished that. In the very early days of Frozen Soul, it was mostly me and Chad writing everything. Me and him wrote about 90 percent of Crypt of Ice,” he adds. “For this one, everyone brought something to the table. We were all five in a room together working on the songs and stuff. Matt helped us tie some loose ends with songs. We’d have songs that were 70 percent done, and he would help us finish them. He would get us outside the box to try stuff that we hadn’t tried before.”

Munday gets excited as he talks about the track list, which includes previously released singles such as “Morbid Effigy” (featuring John Gallagher of Dying Fetus) and “Arsenal of War.”

“For instance, the first couple of songs on the record, like ‘Invisible Tormentor’ and ‘Arsenal of War,’ are just fucking rippers, pedal-to-the-metal, zero-to-a-hundred let’s fucking go,” he says. “Then we have songs like ‘Morbid Effigy’ and ‘Atomic Winter,’ which are just slobber-knocker, heavy-ass moshing songs. We have some songs like ‘Glacial Domination’ and ‘Abominable’ that are more on the melodic side, like stuff you’d hear at big metal festivals, so it’s got a little bit of everything for everybody this time around.”

Ironically, Frozen Soul live shows function more as an antidote to hypothermia than anything.

“If you’re seeing us for the first time, it’s going to get fucking rowdy. Make sure you drink water,” Munday says. “We like to make people circle-pit and overall just have a good time. We want to make people move, whether it’s tapping your foot, nodding your head, full-on headbanging or running around in a circle. We just want you to move.”

Frozen Soul, 6 p.m. Sunday, May 7, Summit Music Hall, 1902 Blake Street. Get tickets, $27.50, here.