Blauerosen

Four years have passed since the release of ‘Chirality’ the latest full length album by Frozen Autumn in 2011 while in 2014 the band released a 12” EP called ‘Lie In Wait’ in 500 numbered copies. This EP is, I suppose, a ‘teaser’ for their next upcoming album and it sounds like it’s going to be yet another great one! It’s been almost ten years since the last time I saw the band perform live. In the meantime, the darkwave scene that was flourishing at the end of 1990s and the beginning of 2000 is facing a crisis especially because the pioneers of the genre release albums which are not equally appealing as in the past not to mention that the releases are less frequent. Some might think that this music style is limited and doesn’t have much more to offer but bands such as The Frozen Autumn mean to prove people wrong as Diego Merletto and Froxeanne seem to know very well that good music transcends temporary music trends and is appreciated even more as time passes.

Diego Merletto and Froxeanne, a.k.a The Frozen Autumn, who celebrate 22 years of composing and performing darkwave music, were the headliners of the second day of a three day festival called Deliquium.This festival was organised by MILKandLEAD at Slimelight and was extremely ambitious as every day was filled with 8 hours of live gigs, dj sets by various djs among which was Slimelight’s own resident Dj Blackdeath 1334 and exhibitions by visual artists and photographers (i.e. Kurt Grüng,  Paola Verde). The bands covered a wide range of dark alternative styles from gothic rock, post punk reminiscent of Clair Obscur to dark ambient (Treha Sektori, Deutsch Nepal and others), noise, power electronics and experimental music (i.e. Ernesto Tomasini ).

It was nice to see that Frozen Autumn were hanging around the upper floor bar among everybody else and not in some unseen room backstage. It’s definitely not common to see a band before their live and this choice of theirs, to wait with the rest of us for the time to pass in order to get on stage, made them more approachable. Both of the days that I attended this festival, there was a delay of approximately 90’ and this was the only reason for the appearance of Frozen Autumn at 2.20 am instead of 1am. However the impatience and maybe the tiredness disappeared instantly once we heard the first notes of ‘There’s No Time To Recall’ a song from the second album of the band ‘Fragments of Memories’ released in 1997. The next song featured Froxeanne at the vocals and during the rest of their setlist the two musicians alternated behind the synth and the vocals. With the exception of their very first album ‘Pale Awakening’ the setlist spanned the whole career of the band from 1997 until now and even included the song ‘The Waveshaper’ from the album ‘Visionary Landscapes’ by their side project Static Movement. We listened to engaging versions of ‘Before The Storm’, ‘Victory’ and ‘So Brave’ a personal favourite song from ‘Chirality’ their latest album. ‘Silence Is Talking’, ‘Polar Plateau’, ‘The Waveshaper’ , ‘Second Sight’ and new songs from their EP ‘Lie in Wait’ took us gradually after 1 hour and 20’ towards the end of the show followed by ‘Sidereal Solitude’ and ‘Is Everything Real?’. Just before the last song Froxeanne addressed the audience and said ‘This is our last song because there are djs afterwards’.I now regret having refrained from shouting back ‘NO, stay and sing more for us’.

Unlike the other two gigs of Frozen Autumn that I have attended in the past, both Diego and Froxeanne were dancing on stage throughout their show. Judging also from fan videos that are available on the internet I can say that it is not often that Frozen Autumn are not static behind the microphone and the synth. I liked this show at Deliquium because their movements increased their already very positive stage appearance. This show might not have been accompanied by visuals but it had this unique additional element of movement, the energy of which was transferred to the audience like an electric current. It was nice to see that the audience was dancing throughout the set, myself included. It would be difficult not to dance with the powerful melodies and the rhythms of this ‘best of’ setlist. Even though the band alternated their places behind the microphone and the synth in a seemingly automatic almost robotic way, the singing was very powerful and very engaging in contrast. I was very pleased with the sound engineering that took into consideration the particularities of Frozen Autumn’s music and it was done carefully so that the melodies, the transitions and the individual notes were not blurred at all. As a result we listened to the band at its best and for the next three days I was still listening to their albums non stop.

I left Deliquium thinking that it’s not common that a band’s name fits their music and vice versa. If there is an element of nostalgia and thrill in the notion of ‘frost’ and the associated ice melting, then I would say that Frozen Autumn have somehow managed to represent admirably all these hard to define emotions in their music. There are quite a lot of bands who are inspired by cold landscapes and coldness in terms of emotions. Usually these bands tend to give a strict character to their music defined by pounding and unchanged rhythms followed by little or no melody and lyrics that express harshness. In strong contrast to this, Frozen Autumn have considered the element of continuity and change within the notion of coldness and have included this in their music. The engaging, ethereal and melodic voice of Froxeanne coupled with her performing style, is transforming her into a siren as she sings about difficult yet sad and even final personal decisions in most of the band’s songs. And at the same time Diego’s different vocal tone is equally melodic thus giving more gravity to the lyrics’ meaning. Consider for a moment how different and less powerful, the verse ‘There’s no time to recall there’s no time to be sure tonight I feel so cold…’ would be if the vocals were less melodic. Ultimately it is the thoughts that their music and their performance provokes and what it embodies, that make us redefine ‘coldness’ as something that is far from static and unchanged, full of possibilities!

The band has a full schedule of live gigs around Europe for the next months and their official tour dates can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/TheFrozenAutumn/photos/a.10151050211511512.417709.53033606511/10152579600516512/?type=1&theater.

You can see more photos of this gig here: https://blaue-rosen.com/frozen-autumn-live-at-deliquium-2/

 Blaue Rosen