Though Frozen Crown’s new album War Hearts keeps pace with the jubilantly shredded power metal the Italian combo has been honing since 2017, it’s likewise an energized sprint forward for the act.
You can credit that to the Milanese outfit having supersized their lineup in 2023 through the addition of third guitar player and rising prodigy Alessia Lanzone. The 18-year-old’s arrival is apparent from the record’s BPM-pushing opening title track, where Lanzone leads off a back-to-back-to‑back solo section with feverishly fluid legato runs.
“We wanted the album to sound explosive and scorching, so it was paramount to have a faster song at the beginning,” founder and chief songwriter Federico Mondelli says. “Also, because this album was introducing Alessia, the first song had to be War Hearts, because she plays the first solo there.”
The track likewise showcases the stylistic differences between Mondelli, Lanzone and the act’s resident tap contortionist, guitarist Fabiola “Sheena” Bellomo. Mondelli says he’s quite calculated when crafting alternately-picked neo-classical textures, while Bellomo can sometimes take months to sculpt out her devilishly melodic and mercurial two-handed moments.
Lanzone had initially come into the recording sessions with leads based on simple melody guides Mondelli had sent her in advance, but ended up scrapping most of those sections to lean into limber legato improvisation informed by her love of John Petrucci and Mark Tremonti.
The young guitarist grew up a fan of Frozen Crown, too – she reached out to compliment them a few years back after seeing them in concert. When the group noticed Lanzone had been posting a series of feisty and flavorful guitar videos on social media, they kept in touch; they formally brought her into the fold to thicken up their sound while touring 2023’s Call of the North.
While Mondelli has long multi-part harmonies into Frozen Crown recordings – sometimes in excess of 16 guitar layers – he concedes there was only so much he and Bellomo could feasibly recreate in concert.
“Because we were just playing a lot of these harmonizations and leads, there was no rhythm back-up at all. It was very thin,” he says. “All these sound engineers and friends were advising us to use a backing track, but of course we didn’t want that – we really despise that! We wanted a real person.”
Mondelli says he’s big on the “human factor” of bringing a third guitarist into the Frozen Crown family. Lanzone, meanwhile, is ecstatic to be starting her recording and touring career with the veteran power metal force.
“My previous band was a local band, so I played covers. I didn’t tour; I wasn’t writing songs,” she says. “This is the first time for everything!”
- War Hearts is out now via Napalm.
