This section includes all major releases under the Frozen Autumn name in chronological order. Visionary Landscapes will be included in the Static Movement section.
Pale Awakening (1995)
Pale Awakening is The Frozen Autumn's debut album, which, according the official website, sold an impressive 5,000 copies in its release year, despite little promotion.
I don't think I could call any of The Frozen Autumn's albums my definitive 'favorite' but Pale Awakening is an incredible album and certainly the one that I revisit most often. By far their most atmospheric project, I frequently listen to Pale Awakening while coding this very website!
Hauntingly beautiful, and so romantic, almost lonely but with the shadow of something unknowable lying in wait. Pale Awakening, Again, Winter, Another Tear, Onyria, This Time, Bio Vital, When Dreams Became Memories... every song on this album is a beautiful experience and captures some profound feeling in my soul.
It may also be tied with Fragments of Memories in terms of my favorite album cover art. I adore the font and text effects on the second cover, and with its dark and romantic colors I feel it best captures the energy of the music out of the three covers. I do also adore the icy colors and composition of the first cover, a design that I also find fitting.
Fragments of Memories (1997)
This album saw the debut of Froxeanne who was not yet part of the band. According to the website, this album "marked an increased interest for the artwork" made by the band. Froxeanne's beautiful voice features in the title track.
My introduction to The Frozen Autumn, this is another incredible album that I would probably revisit more often nowadays if I hadn't tired myself out listening to thousands of hours of it back in 2023. Even so I'm hardly sick of it; I adore Diego's vocals and the twinkling synths, the experience they create together. The songs on this album feel truly lonely, without the tension that exists in Pale Awakening. They're incredibly beautiful and the epitome of the feeling of wandering through a dream, lost, confused, but strangely at peace, the cold wind blowing on your face.
I don't think it'd even be possible for me to pick a favorite song or songs off of this project, I'd be giving you the entire tracklist; I usually skip the remixes, though.
Both album covers are also beautiful. I feel I associate the darkness and blues of the second more closesly with the sound of the music, but as a standalone design I might prefer the first.
I'll mention here that across both Pale Awakening and Fragments of Memories, I adore the use of the piano and do mourn the transition to pure synths a little bit purely for this reason lol. I love the Frozen Autumn's early instrumentals to death, Winter on this album and the title track on the last.
Emotional Screening Device (2002)
This album could be considered the band's fourth, as TFA considers Visionary Landscapes the bridge between Fragments of Memories and Emotional Screening Device. This project was the first released under The Frozen Autumn's name that featured Froxeanne as a permanent band member. Following in the footsteps of Visionary Landscapes, the album features no guitar, only electro sound. Arianna explains the title and concept of the album as an expression of their feeling transparent and emotionally exposed, especially to strangers (interview).
This album is directly responsible for the whole infinite castle theming of my website, thanks to the one and only "Is Everything Real?". Perhaps as a result of the pure electro sounds of the album, this album feels a little less like wandering a dream in a winter landscape and more like wandering a dream in some twisting labyrinth or unfathomably vast mechancial structure. This is another album I revisit constantly. Some tracks stretch on perhaps a bit long, but the highs are really high. Sperm Like Honey is easily a top TFA song; When You Are Sad, Silence is Talking, Freon Heart, Fayence Mind, Second Sight (both A and D) and the title track are other highlights. Yes that's basically all of them, shush. Also, as much as I love their piano instrumentals, Precious Lives is still fantastic and manages to capture what I liked about their earlier instrumentals without the piano.
To be perfectly honest I had never seen the first album cover before writing this article, so I'm super biased to the second, being the one I'm already familiar with. I feel that the flowers are a weaker connection to the music as per my little explanation about the energy the album gives off to me.
As a small point of interest about this album; apparently there was an issue with the limited edition of Emotional Screening Device, in which the reading side of the CD became bleary over time and increasingly difficult to read. There's a fun ghost story in there somewhere.
Is Anybody There? (2005)
An album described by TFA as an "ice-cold, stylistically flawless album, a never redundant 'electro-chiselled' work." They describe it as their least-easy listen, a claim I would probably agree with as out of their entire discography this is the only album that took some time to grow on me.
I most definitely need to dedicate more listens to this one before I feel ready to write a full entry, as the more I listen to this album the more interesting each of these songs becomes. For now I'll make it known that Guardian Angel, Venetian Blinds, Polar Plateau and Static Cold are my favorite tracks, and I'm also a fan of the instrumental for Citywards.
Chirality (2011)
This album marks the end of the comparatively gritty, textured album covers of TFA past... ah well, the 2000s cleanening is bound to happen to all bands eventually. Artistically speaking the transition is much more graceful than I'm used to seeing. For one I actually still like this album cover! It aligns perfectly with the music; when I think of this album I think of Froxeanne's ghostly wailing voice before anything else. Lo and behold, the ghostly figure on the cover.
This project is probably my least-revisited out of their discography, but I struggle to put my finger on exactly why that is. Its sound is less dark than their other projects, and though Froxeanne's voice is incredibly beautiful, it begins to wear on me a little by the album's end. I was going to list my favorite songs off of this album, but as I was going through, I found myself listing every single song, if that tells you anything... it's not that I don't like the music, it's that I think I just like these songs better in isolation. I prefer listening to albums all the way through from start to finish, so I just don't come back to it often.
Sidereal Solitude in particular is down there as one of TFA's songs that I don't particularly care for, unfortunately. Froxeanne's vocals are a little too much for me on this track. But on other tracks—Victory and her version of Wait For Nothing come to mind— it works very well for me.
Lie in Wait - EP (2014)
A 12-inch vinyl containing three previously unreleased tracks and an atmospheric version of Sidereal Solitude. The theme, according to Diego, is that of tension and anticipation on a dreamlike level (interview).
As mentioned previously, Sidereal Solitude is not my favorite TFA track and this version of it doesn't do much to change that. (more to come)
The Fellow Traveler (2017)
This album revolves around the concept of travel, both endless, physical travel, and metaphysical, dreamlike travel; in either case, continuous movement. Songs feature underlying sounds evoking images of vehicles ready for take-off; the album cover is a digitally-edited picture Froxeanne took of Diego at an airport (Buenos Aires), a place which Diego describes as a "gate through dimensions". (interview)
With The Fellow Traveler we arrive at yet another example of an incredible Frozen Autumn album, despite the project's release a whole 22 years after their enchanting debut. Although Fragments of Memories was my introduction to the band, The Fellow Traveler is the one that really sunk its claws into me until I was ready to connect with the rest of their projects. Depending on the person, I would likely suggest this album as the gateway just for its accessibility.
If there's anything I could fault this album for, it's that I feel it creates less of a distinct or profound emotional experience than their previous projects, hence my lack of artsy description of what the album feels like to listen to. I suppose in other words, whereas their other albums are able to touch me emotionally and sonically, The Fellow Traveler mostly only clicks with me sonically... but to be fair, it does a really spectacular job of doing that. In fact it connects with me sonically so well that this album is the one and only album I regularly use as a headache cure, so you can take that as will. The synths are just so beautifully crisp they feel healing, like some kind of sound therapy.
My favorite songs off this project are probably Tomorrow's Life, Told You at Once, A Gentle Flame, and Grey Metal Wings, but I don't think the album has any particular low or slow points.
The album cover feels servicable in how it relates to the energy of the music. I will forever mourn the textures of their earlier covers, but barring that, the space is filled interestingly with the shapes of the window, and the pinkish lavender sky is intriguing.
A point of interest: Apparently, an unauthorized third party leaked details of this album without the band's consent sometime after the project had been finalized, causing pressure on the promotional end of things. The band never identified this third party, nor could I find many further details, but this was a very disappointing thing to learn.
The Shape Of Things To Come (2023)
Their latest studio album as of writing. This album felt like a personal gift to me when it released, since it came out the same year that I became completely obsessed with them. For me this album evokes imagery of changing colors of sky filtered through colorful jewels. Midnight Sun City, Origami Clouds, and Autosuggestion are my personal highlights—especially Autosuggestion. Oh my god, Autosuggestion. I would never normally describe TFA's music as "catchy" but I catch myself humming and singing along to this song regularly, accent and all. It sits at 8 minutes on the album, but honestly, it could have easily been half an hour and I wouldn't even bat an eye. It's extremely addictive.
The album features some very solid and pretty music and connects with me on a soul-level a bit better than the previous album, but nowhere near the same extent as their earlier music. I wish I could better articulate why; perhaps these later albums have a sort of 'cleanliness' to their sound that feels a little less personal, unique, or stirring than their earlier music. Their sound is still "cold" to be sure, but it often feels more like inside-of-an-empty-building cold than frosty-cold. What keeps me hooked are Diego and Froxeanne's gorgeous vocals, which is especially the case on Shape of Things to Come.
My distaste of post-2000s album covers has nothing to do with The Frozen Autumn in particular, in fact these guys have survived the shift far, far better than any other band I've followed, but even that can't save this album cover from being my least favorite out of their discography, as much as it pains me to say. But even so! It's not ugly; the space is used interestingly, and it feels much more specifically attuned to the feel of the music than, say, The Fellow Traveler's cover.
In the future, I hope for more releases that feel a little less smoothed and cleaned to perfection; but who knows what the duo have planned! Whatever the case, I'll be along for the ride.
Midnight Sun City - EP (2024)
adding soon!
Other
The Pale Collection (2000)
There's No Tomorrow (The Frozen Autumn Remix) (2002)
I love the original Clan of Xymox song, and I enjoy this remix too! Naturally it feels a little more atmospherically driven.
The Early Visuals (2004)
dvd
Seen From Under Ice (2010)
Seen From Under Ice is a double DVD featuring 27 total tracks. Disc one consists of small live studio performances held at The Memory Room Studio, dating back to 2009, with remastered versions of songs off of Pale Awakening and Is Anybody There, blended with Diego and Froxeanne's video art. The second disc consists of the remaining performances, three TFA and Static Movement music videos, and live shows in Ferrare and Darmstadt with behind-the-scenes footage.
I am desperate for a copy of this and a DVD reader one day. Not all but a few of these remastered songs are available to listen on Youtube, and many of them are my favorite of the band's entire catalogue. The video art is also very pretty. I've always inexplicably associated this band with a certain kind of gothic old web nostalgia and the style of these videos cemented that connection.
The remastered versions of Ashes and Venetian Blinds are two of my absolute favorites among The Frozen Autumn's works. Click here for a playlist of the few remasters available on Youtube.
Rallentears - 10" Vinyl EP (2010)
Time is Just a Memory - Compilation (2015)
Awake & Asleep (Ft. The Frozen Autumn) (2020)
This one I actually discovered naturally, I very much enjoy this song. It's kind of relaxing.
There is Nothing More to See (The Frozen Autumn Remix) (2021)
This is a remix I had no idea existed until writing this article. However, I'm very glad to have found it, it has a very nice sound!
Autosuggestion - Single (2023)
This release features a video-edit version of Autosuggestion (come on guys, we need a half-an-hour version, not a 5 minute version!!!) as well as a completely new track, Crossing the Border, an instrumental that I actually really, really like. It feels like a blend of their current sound and what I miss from their earlier works.