Album Review: Negative Frame – Break The Ice (Blood Blast Distribution)

Negative Frame, the London-based metallic hardcore band, will release their long-awaited debut album, ‘Break the Ice’, on August 7th, 2026, via Blood Blast Distribution.

Few bands go into their debut album as refined as Negative Frame, but the noise-mongers have been doing this since 2017. That’s almost a decade of head-banging and spin-kicking wild antics and anybody who has seen them live can attest to their intensity, and brilliance. It’s hardcore, but hardcore with a thick and sinewy metallised edge, and on this album, they push their sound in bold new directions.

Samsara opens things in unexpected fashion, being an atmospherically-tinged drum-based effort, that rolls effortlessly into the mighty 9 Circles. Where, if you needed any more proof that metal is just as important as hardcore to this band, you will find riffs, vocal roars, and flashes of two-step aggression.

Do you want to move a bit more though? Here’s New Lows, and Negative Frame in a vitriolic mood. It has hardcore running through its metallised veins, but with more modern anthemic properties that adds layers of interesting harmony to things. I love it, but I also love Sorrow & Solitude, one of the album’s most interesting tracks.

Interesting because it has more range while still be undeniably intense. The intensity is coming from a more emotional place, and it resonates especially as the whole track has an old-school metalcore vibe that makes it quite anthemic. A track complimented by the killer Cut Throat. Where bloody noses, broken teeth, and a couple of concussions seem assured, such is the manic intensity of it. It’s a glowing tribute to lost loved ones, but in their inimitable style. One of the album’s strongest tracks.

The halfway point of record then comes and goes with Cold Nights and Pay to Play spitting fire as they take the tone in varied directions but notably delivering old-school shouts, infectious stomps, ripping riffs, and some seriously killer soloing. The latter is so much fun, but few will be complaining about the former or the fact that the following Rat Trap then comes with an arsehole tightening level of aggression. The instruments are so thick here and the vocals are scathing, and I’m all in on it.

I’ve been a fan for a while though, having seen them live a fair few times, and while I can hear that they’re moving their sound forward, I’m not unhappy about that. Sure, there will be some, the hardcore faithful, that will gnash and wail about something like Heavens Blue, but even more who love the melodrama and massive vocal shift.

The thing is, there’s plenty of heaviness on the album elsewhere, and even though Negative Frame have clearly gotten comfortable with more harmonious elements, it doesn’t stop Part of Me sounding utterly beastly. Nor does it stop the finale of Another Way threatening to knock some teeth out.

Fuck yeah.

Negative Frame – Break the Ice Track Listing:

1. Samsara
2. 9 Circles
3. New Lows
4. Sorrow & Solitude
5. Cut Throat
6. Cold Nights
7. Pay To Play
8. Rat Trap
9. Heavens Blue
10. Part Of Me
11. Another Way

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