Review: Freakangel – 'How The Ghost Became'

FREAKANGEL
'How The Ghost Became'
DIGITAL WORLD AUDIO

Despite starting life as a side project, Freakangel has coalesced into a monster of a band in its own right. Over the course of seven years the band has developed from a dark ebm project into an industrial metal powerhouse. The band's fourth full-length studio effort, 'How The Ghost Became', is their heaviest offering to date, like punch through a brick wall heavy. Sounding more like NDH guitars meets Nothing Records grooves, with a sprinkle of modern aggrotech electronics, the band have have become a bludgeon of raw and frantic emotion.

Songs such as 'Witness The Fall', 'Insight', 'Make Me Disappear', 'In The Witch House', 'Death walks With Us', 'Kingdom Of Fire', and 'Devotion' exemplify this sonic formula best with their heavy guitars, throat-shredding vocals and strangely enticing electronics hinting at their club-friendly past, but pushing harder than ever before into that metal scene. The development, no matter how this may disappoint anyone who prefers their early incarnation, feels totally organic and right, much in the same way that the recent releases from Cyanotic, Combichrist, and Dawn Of Ashes have.

There are the odd songs that retain an almost dance feel such as 'Giving Up The Ghost', and 'Hell And Back', but even these are firmly punctured by heavy guitars rooting them in the metal end of the band's sound. But that's not a bad thing. There is still that strong electronic presence that while not be 100% dance-friendly isn't a total about turn from their roots.

Being a metal album the production is geared towards balancing the guitars with the aggressive vocals and making sure the electronics aren’t swamped by either. The band, know their stuff, and despite this significantly heavier approach achieve this balance with relative ease with no one element dominating another to its detriment.

This is perhaps the strongest and most well-rounded Freakangel outing to date. In fact it really sounds as though they have found themselves on this album. Everything seems to have come together to create a confident, heavy album that perfectly balances their aggression with their electronic prowess. It has been a well-paced evolution to this point, but this album feels like year zero, from which they can launch a wider assault on the metal scene. Time will tell how they attempt to evolve the sound further, but 'How The Ghost Became' will certainly be looked on as a pivotal moment.  

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