Some days you just want something different from your music. On those days, reach for Freakangel’s How The Ghost Became (Digital World Audio). Freakangel hails from Estonia and are less about creating music than about creating aural art. Listening to How the Ghost Became is an artistic experience for the ears as the album consists of ten pieces of modern art that you listen to.

The music may get slotted into electronica, but the vocals are a mix of scream and new wave. It’s as almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Fear Factory and The Browning. Take a song like ‘Witness The Fall’ which starts out with what sounds like electronic gunfire. The drumming gives it an antiseptic feel. Then the vocals come it; hard, screaming, angst. At a minute twenty-one in there is a bridge that has an indescribable computer presence. It’s quite quick. Then the vocals kick in.

But before I can get a handle on it, the song segues into the next. ‘Insight’. Ironic as that’s what I’m looking for in How The Ghost Became. ‘Insight’ sounds similar to ‘Witness The Fall’. ‘Make Me Disappear’ has potential; less of the electronica and more of the atmospheric modern metal feel to it. ‘Make Me Disappear’ and ‘Death Walks With Us’ are the most accessible songs on the album and I also really enjoyed ‘Giving Up The Ghost’. It’s a straight up club song; flashing lights, lasers, over-crowded dance floor.

The second half of Freakangel’s How the Ghost Became differentiates itself in terms of genre more than the first. It’s still electronica-heavy, but more is done with the construction and tone and there are quite a few songs the listener will enjoy just for the fact it is darn good music.

Review by Ghost Cult Magazine

Since their set up in 2010 Estonian combo Freakangel didn’t stop terrorizing the electro-underground scene. It all started a rather dark-electronic way, but rapidly moved towards metal-driven influences. After four full lengths released on Alfa Matrix the band signed to Digital World Audio – which clearly seems more involved when it comes to metal music genres, to unleash their newest opus.

Content: I’ve always associated Freakangel with power and violence and that’s once again what the new work stands for. “How The Ghost Became” is a hard and merciless source of power and aggression. The harsh screaming vocals of frontman D. Darling have been joined by furious guitar playing, speed rhythms and raw electronics. The opening song, which is a kind of intro directly, announces what you might expect.

Freakangel is terrorizing the listener by heavy industrial-metal parts. The electronic arrangements are quite rough and totally fitting with the global power of the guitar, cadence and vocals.

Freakangel is one of the few bands I know which has found this perfect balance between metal music and electronics. Both elements are really essential to their work and part of their success. The metal style became more important during the years, but they still take care to compose great and very personal electronics. Some songs have been extra empowered by epic arrangements. This album moves on there where “The Show Of Violence” stopped. It’s even more power and extra rage and I like it! Every single song is new and violent outburst revealing a band with a very unique sound DNA!

The only regret is that you no longer can be really surprised if you’re familiar with the Freakangel sound. During the years they familiarized us with this harsh industrial-metal sound so you know what to expect.

Conclusion: Freakangel is a sonic bulldozer which has lost control and simply destroys everything on its way! It remains a great band and without a shadow of a doubt the new flag holder of their label.

Review by Side-Line

Friends, we have been working on something else beside “How The Ghost Became“… In co-op with Limestone Games we give you “Red Hot Iron“! This is just a small tease of things to come…

“Red Hot Iron is a fresh take on melee based action games set in a distant sci-fi world where space-faring technology does not necessarily equal blasters and computers. You play as Saiph, a native blacksmith who ends up sharing an armor-like shell with a symbiotic Void overlord Aeon who was betrayed by his generals.” (c) http://www.redhotiron.net

Music: “Arrival” written by D. Darling and Art / Performed by Freakangel

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