EMBERS OF OBLIVION are a young, up-and-coming Melodic Death Metal band from The Netherlands. Even with "Dark The Winter Frost" being the group's debut album, EMBERS OF OBLIVION have already finished a promotional tour and are already at work on their second album by now. With tons of stage experience and a large pool of motivation to work on their music while getting recognition from the global community of Metal fans, in all honesty, this is not the last time you will hear from EMBERS OF OBLIVION.

I found that every song on "Dark The Winter Frost" has a degree of likability to it in varying degrees. I truly did not expect that out of an Independent Melodic Death Metal band, something that I come across a lot more often than you probably assume. But that goes to show you that you can never judge a book, or a band, by its cover. This band reminded me of another Dutch Melodic Death Metal band I was introduced to through writing these reviews that I didn't expect to impress me, ENRAGED. I couldn't dig up any direct links between these artists but I would hope Jens van der Valk of ENRAGED has some sort of loose connection to EMBERS OF OBLIVION. The music is inspired by a aggravated energy that is undercut by the word "Embers" in the band's name because the fires of their aggression are not smoldering but rather molten hot.

There is a major flaw to "Dark The Winter Frost" and it has nothing to do with grammatically questionable album title. The vocals, provided by frontman Milan Snel, are not a good fit for the music. I love the riffs of songs like "Awaiting Death" which, like artists that combine influences from Hardcore like PANTERA or ANTHRAX, have an infectious groove to it. Songs like "Embers Of Oblivion" have excellent, blisteringly fast and melodically rich solo verses because great solo guitarists deserve multiple solos. But these songs are dragged down a lot by the croaking and shallow vocals. I find this issue to keep coming up on other tracks as well. They become a little bit more tolerable and appropriate on "Catalyst Of Agony" but the vocals are a huge burden for my listening experience of "Dark The Winter Frost."

This band has a ton in common with such prolific Melodic Death Metal bands like HYPOCRISY, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER and AT THE GATES. At least the musicianship of EMBERS OF OBLIVION can match the drum and string work of these bands. Marco den Riet has nailed down the machine-like tightness of the drums needed for executing memorable and powerful Melodeath. And each and every guitar solo (I assume provided by Lars Adams) is splendidly quick and expressive.

I really want to give this band a break, despite how much I didn't like the vocals from Milan, but I hope you will too. EMBERS OF OBLIVION are a band with an enormous amount of potential and since this Dutch band has only just begun to get their feet wet in the waters of Death Metal, there's a big possibility that this band could be making waves sometime soon.