Winter is undoubtedly the most Metal of the seasons and whenever I find myself in a snow-covered scene (preferably with big fucking pine trees around me), I cannot help but feel the dying screams of a thousand Black Metal bands echoing in my head. I suppose the reason for this is that so many of them hail from the freezing cold parts of the world and this is so perfectly reflected in the cold, harsh tones found across their music.

ISTAPP are a perfect example of this wintry sound, their name even means icicle in Swedish. "Frostbiten" is the band's second full-length album since their inception in 2005, and is by far the most polished work they have released.

With a great deal of likeness to earlier DIMMU BORGIR, they hover around the much more Melodic side of Black Metal. The album kicks off with "Apep", and instantly the guitar has this melancholy tone that only Black Metal can achieve. The throaty screams of Isar echo the mighty roar of Johan Hegg screaming for the cry of the blackbirds. In fact, I'm sure Isar is the bastard love child of Johan and Angela Gossow.

The music itself is what you would expect from a band called icicle writing about the Earth, getting really fucking cold. There depth behind it and the overall atmosphere is well matched to the icy tundra of the Arctic Circle. The big epic clean vocals are perfectly placed and the eponymous second track is quite possibly the best from the album just because of the brief moments of monk-like vocals.

I would love to be able to speak Swedish and understand what is being said for the most part of the album. It's certainly interesting to have an album so dedicated to the best of the seasons. After a short time with Google translate, I have discovered that the song titles include; "First Cold", "Winterland" and "White Power", to name but three. OK, so that last one is a little too Vark Vikerness for my liking, and I'm hoping that ISTAPP aren't another white supremacist band hiding behind Black Metal. I don't think this is the case though, as they have described a desire to wipe the entire planet clean of the evils of anything that can't survive sub zero temperatures.

I'm sure die-hard fans of gritty, un-produced Black Metal will feel that this is too clean for their liking. If you don't mind some good production, then you'll probably get on very well with this album.

As a side note, I have managed to avoid making any references to a particularly popular Disney film. They would have suited however, seeing as Disney worship the same dark Gods as any good old Satanist.<