Frantic Amber – Death Becomes Her – Album Review
10th May 2025This album didn’t seduce me. It seized me.
One second I’m sipping lukewarm coffee—thinking about emails, laundry, the usual tedium—and then Bloodbath hits, and I’m not in my kitchen anymore. I’m somewhere else. Something else. On my knees, maybe. Or burning alive. It’s hard to say.
Elizabeth’s voice sounds like it was clawed out of the earth with bleeding hands. It’s not performed; it’s endured. She doesn’t deliver lyrics—she flings them like broken teeth. And I—idiot creature that I am—keep catching them in my mouth.
Guitars come in snarling. Not “tight,” not “technical.” They writhe. They’re possessed. There’s this moment—midway through “Jolly Jane” I think—where everything collapses into this groove that feels like someone pressing down hard between your shoulder blades. And for a breathless, too-short instant… I feel safe. I hate it.
The album doesn’t build. It drags. Like a body. One track to the next, flayed and furious. Sometimes it even tries to be beautiful, but only in the way that lightning is—sudden, violent, and probably fatal. The title track did something to me. I won’t describe it. I don’t want to.
The drums are—well. They don’t play. They impose. It’s like being shoved down a flight of stairs by someone who knows exactly how many you can take before something cracks. There’s a percussive moment during In The Garden Of Bones (around 2:17, I think?) that made me physically gasp. I don’t usually do that.
And the themes—goddesses, soldiers, fury, flame—could feel like too much. But they don’t. Because they aren’t symbols. They’re weapons. There’s no mythology here. Just history with its teeth bared.
Side note: I tried to make dinner afterward. Couldn’t. Just stood there with my hands in the sink, letting the water run too hot.
It’s not just an album. It’s a punishment. A reward. A reminder.
That you’re still raw inside. That something can still reach you.
That maybe—maybe—you want to be destroyed just a little.
I do. Apparently.
(Also: my neighbor knocked on the wall three times during “Gore Candy.” So. That’s a five-star track.)
Score 9/10
Track List
01. El Orfanato (Intro)
02. Bloodbath
03. Black Widow
04. Death Becomes Her
05. Hell’s Belle
06. Angel Maker
07. Jolly Jane
08. Gore Candy
09. The Butcheress
10. In The Garden Of Bones
11. Epitaphium (Outro)
Label – ROAR
Release – 4th April
