We have a debut album from Finland today kids. The band is ICE EXILE and they are promising to deliver a melodic Death Metal in their first full album called Reset The Sky. The band used to be known as ARCHARES and was created around 2016 with a number of singles in their belt, but for some reason, they have changed the name to ICE EXILE. I kind of understand that if you live in Finland. The first track is “Open Fire” that starts with a sweet acoustic guitar before the guttural scream and the distorted guitar wall of sound invades your headphone.

From what I can hear, there is not much Death Metal on it. I believe it is more to the traditional Heavy Metal side that also leans a lot on the mythical history and tales, and I have to say, they are quite good. The arrangements with the violin are quite surprising and pleasant. The first track actually delivers a lot and excites the listener for what is to come next. And what comes next is “Civilization Zero” and you will notice the good craftsmanship dedicated to the arrangements. The band mixes melodic and guttural with competence in this energetic track. The songs are varied and usually start with a nice piano or acoustic strings as you can hear in “Bloodfeud”. The guitar riffs provided by Oskari Kilpi are intricate and interesting, and he can also provide great solos. He is also credited as the keyboardist and I do not know how he does both live. I am surprised how much each song offers in terms of arrangement, variety and creativity.

“Chained And Bound” starts, and this is the one that sounds more accessible for the non connoisseurs as it has an easy and sticky chorus until it reaches the crazy guttural vocals in the last part, mixed with a sweet female vocal that I do not know where it came from.  The band has a good singer in Miika Matilainen that delivers in every track, good melodic singing mixed with some powerful guttural and sometimes raspy vocals as per the arrangement requirements. A jack of all trades as you can hear in the good “Reapers Feast” that for me gets the best of the album title so far. Intricate tempos, multiple arrangements creating different moods for the listener. The mid section of this track, commanded by a killer bass riff from bass player Roger Gottleben, takes the trophy for me. Killer track. ICE EXILE has also a competent drummer on Ville Nummisalo that starts “Face The Night” bringing vibes of BLIND GUARDIAN to my ears. We reach “Anthropocentrum” that I have no idea what it means but I can tell that the lyrics tell the usual emotional struggles in life and relationships.

I have to leave a small paragraph to the Cello and Violin played by Veikko Sajaniemi that in every band of the same genre, it may look out of place to have a Cello player ,but Veikko surprises in every track nice arrangements taking the songs to a higher level and stamping his name in the metal scene as the unexpected Metal Cello player. We end our journey with him dictating the riff on the last whimsical track “The Satellite (We Call Home)” that is another banger. Impressive first release from ICE EXILE. Good songs, good musicians and good production giving the impression that they are on the road for a long time already despite being their first release. I look forward to see where they go from here. Nice album cover as well,