6

Siberian Divide

The Fields of Trauma, from Norwegian band Frail Grounds, features a figure akin to X-man Colossus as if he had just awoke from the Matrix. Like the Matrix there are lots of enigmatic questions and few answers on Frail Ground's record but it's all about the journey (man).

The talk about this album is all about blending elements from harsh and warm, soft and hard as the band follow their protagonist into deepest Siberia on his emotional and physical quest. Maybe to deliver predictable referendum results or maybe not.

I suppose The Fields of Trauma would be termed prog-metal such is the use of long winded arrangements and distortion that makes it neither prog nor heavy metal alone but nor is there high minded progression either.

Having said that the album starts off with a track entitled Prologue: Arrival so there's maybe a little pretension going on here. It's a swell of strings before the high tensile riffs of The Expedition kick in, "it was the middle of the black night we arrived on Siberian soil...far from the world we knew." So far, self explanatory. The song weaves in a few time changes among the fairly stock chugging and onward to the interwoven solos of Freeze Me. The story is pretty much told in the song titles with predictable lyrics delivered in that most hated metal trope: alternate cheese-flecked clean vocals juxtaposed with growled vocals. That particular idea could do with a rest.

The Sinister Road - ooooh, scary - brings the melodic rock stylings before the record begins to flag. That could be a deliberate storytelling device, y'know the drudgery of the journey especially as the fella seems to have hypothermia at this point but it's more likely to be the repetitive nature of the songs. We're now sure that this is all for a lost love, "I did it all to save you" as Triptych and Origin bring in the ringing guitar figures and streaks of piano alongside the gleaming metal.

This story doesn't seem to end well for our journeyman: "I can see there's nothing out there as a storm has taken it all away." Not sure how he can see anything but you get the [metaphorical] picture. Anyway, in this "frozen world of sadness" Frail Grounds continue to sweep away at the scenery as the wind machine and dry ice are cranked up and someone wipes away a tear. Probably.

The hero of the story will go on, as will Frail Grounds who have given it their all on an admirable if hackneyed narrative metal album.