Hail Of Bullets are a band formed by members culled from various other outfits: There's former Pestilence/Asphyx vocalist Martin van Drunen, ex-Houwitser bassist Theo van Eekelen, guitarists Stephan Gebedi and Paul Baayens from Thanatos and drummer Ed Warby from Gorefest and their debut, …Of Frost And War, is a concept album based around the Eastern Front in World War II.  With song titles such as, ‘Ordered Eastward’, ‘Red Wolves Of Stalin’ and the catchy ‘The Crucial Offensive (19-11-1942, 7:30 AM)’, there really  is no room for misinterpretation of what this album is about.  

Music wise the band serve up a good dose of old style death metal, the guitars grooves along nicely for the most part with ‘General Winter’ and ‘Advancing Once More’ in particular have stunning moments. Given that the whole album is based around a theme of WWII it comes as no surprise that the cliched  air raid siren makes an appearance along with occasional marching style drum patterns and whilst the opening few tracks of the album hold up well it is in the latter part, where the band take on an old Paradise Lost feel with the guitars, that the album works best, the closing salvo of ‘Inferno At The Carpathian Mountains’ and ‘Berlin’ proving to be amongst the highlights. 

…Of Frost And War is at it's best when Hail Of Bullets are at their slowest, the intro to ‘Ordered Eastward’ being a case in point,  but overall it's a brutal, menacing album that has its good points and when the bands get things right it is truly excellent, you only end up wishing the rest of the album was equally as good. The downside however lies with the vocals which aren't really to my taste, however …Of Frost And War is probably going to suit anyone that is into the old death metal scene.

Darren Brushneen