Soul Grinder: Frozen Halls
Photo: Michael “Baalphemor” Stahlschmidt
Soul Grinder’s Frozen Halls rips straight from the crypt of the late ’80s, when flyers were traded by hand and brutality meant something real.
There’s a certain kind of death metal that lives in the bones—raw, unpolished, and drenched in that sickly blend of dread and euphoria that marked the underground in the late eighties. Back then, bands like Obituary, Malevolent Creation, and Carcass weren’t just names—they were flags raised in dimly lit basements and beachside gatherings, scrawled on photocopied flyers, and passed hand-to-hand among people who lived for the next brutal show.
That spirit lives again in Soul Grinder.
With Frozen Halls—their third full-length album under MDD Records, out October 16, 2025—the Bremen-based trio reclaims that savage energy with the kind of precision and sincerity that can’t be faked. There’s no gloss, no compromise, just unrelenting death metal that bleeds darkness, horror, and rage. The songs crawl from the same crypt that birthed the genre itself—blast beats, guttural howls, and riffs sharp enough to skin the air.
“Frozen Halls” unfolds like a descent into the mind’s most corrupted corners. Fictional horror stories, Lovecraftian dread, and social decay blend together in lyrics that stare straight into the abyss. Tracks like Cursed Covenant and Into the Nightmare hit with that chaotic early-era brutality, while Frozen Halls itself leans cinematic—a slow, ominous intro that swells into double-bass warfare and spectral melody.
When Tetzel of Asenblut appears on “Malevolent Reality,” the result feels like a ritual invocation—two worlds of ferocity colliding under one black sky. But even without the guest firepower, Soul Grinder’s chemistry is lethal: Mathias Junge (vocals/bass), Steffen Hustert (guitar/backing vocals), and Maté “Balrogh” Balogh (drums) deliver a wall of sound that’s as tight as it is terrifying. Balrogh’s drumming alone borders on supernatural speed, giving the album its pulse and its panic.
There’s something deeply nostalgic about the way Frozen Halls moves—it’s not just music, it’s memory. Listening feels like standing once again in a sweat-stained room where the air hums with distortion and community. It’s the sound of that old underground “tribe” where fans and artists existed outside the mainstream, bonded by heaviness and authenticity.
From Amorphous Blight’s breakneck tempo to the thrashing hooks of Lurking Death and the oppressive weight of Ominous Retribution, every track feels like a slab of concrete torn from the tomb of death metal’s golden years. The production keeps the grit intact while letting each instrument breathe—a perfect nod to the analog brutality of the past.
By the time the final track, Towards a Silent Grave, fades into the dark, you’re left with that familiar metallic taste of exhaustion and transcendence—the one you used to get after a night of headbanging until sunrise.
In a time when “death metal” is often polished into oblivion, Soul Grinder brings it home. Frozen Halls isn’t just a record—it’s a resurrection.
Pre-order Frozen Halls: https://amzn.to/45U6tDO (German) and Bandcamp link: https://soulgrinder1.bandcamp.com/ (English)
Pre Order Here
Frozen Halls releases through MDD Records on October 16th
