The Frozen Autumn – Emotional Screening Device (2002)

Unvinyl #5

Eibon Records has easily been one of my favourite labels for the last 25 years or so. It’s not uncommon when you’re a music geek: sooner or later, you also start developing loyalty to labels, not just artists, drawn in by their identity, musically and aesthetically. You end up picking up releases almost blindly, simply because the logo on the back cover starts to feel like a safe bet.

That was exactly the kind of reputation Italy’s Eibon built for itself, with a consistent catalogue of darkwave, ambient, power electronics, and other esoteric, out-of-left-field sounds. Back in the late ’90s and early 2000s they were strictly a CD label — vinyl would be adopted much later, only sporadically — and, besides usually gorgeous packaging, one of their defining traits was the way they introduced new releases, offering a full track from each album as a free download.

That policy is exactly how I first crossed paths with Italian duo The Frozen Autumn back in 2002. The track Eibon chose to showcase ‘Emotional Screening Device’ was ‘When You Are Sad’, an eight-minute piece that, despite its length, felt surprisingly immediate. Compared to Eibon’s usual output, its synthpop atmosphere stood out, surprisingly catchy and immediate. I was hooked on the spot.

Despite being a new discovery for me, The Frozen Autumn weren’t exactly rookies. They had already released a couple of albums in the mid ’90s, at the time centered around vocalist/keyboardist Diego Merletto and guitarist Claudio Brosio. After that line-up fell apart, Diego went on to form Static Movement with vocalist and keyboardist Arianna (aka Froxeanne), who had previously appeared as a guest on The Frozen Autumn’s second album, ‘Fragments Of Memories’. Static Movement would only produce one full-length, ‘Visionary Landscapes’, but it effectively marked a restart of The Frozen Autumn, now reshaped as a duo with Diego and Arianna.

That evolution made complete sense, considering that ‘Visionary Landscapes’, from a musical standpoint, clearly planted the seeds that would fully bloom on ‘Emotional Screening Device’. Diego himself confirmed the connection between the albums when I interviewed him around that time: “‘Emotional Screening Device’ was a direct consequence of the work done as Static Movement”, he explained. “‘Visionary Landscapes’ is basically the missing link between ‘Fragments Of Memories’ and ‘Emotional Screening Device’, as well as the album from which we drew the greatest inspiration during the songwriting process”.

When I finally put my hands on ‘Emotional Screening Device’, the surprise was a very welcome one. The album delivered a synthpop-infused take on darkwave that clearly nodded to Clan Of Xymox, ‘Blue Room’-era Kirlian Camera, and Depeche Mode circa ‘Black Celebration’, yet never felt just derivative. Those references were filtered through a sensibility and personality very much their own. More importantly, the record sounded like a statement of intent: proof that this kind of sound didn’t have to remain trapped in the ’80s, and could still exist convincingly in a contemporary context without disowning its roots. “That has definitely always been our intention”, said Diego. “And it’s what we’ve consistently worked towards. We’ve been saying it for a long time. After that, all we can do is hope we’ve succeeded as best we could”.

And they did succeed. ‘Emotional Screening Device’ comes across as a cohesive body of work, bookended by two different versions of ‘Second Sight’, each distinct both lyrically and in its arrangement. The opening ‘(d)’ version is more somber, with vocals handled by Diego, while the closing ‘(a)’ take feels more upbeat and open-ended, this time sung by Arianna. The symmetry works beautifully, giving the album a clear sense of closure.

Within that framework, there are plenty of highlights. The melancholic pull of ‘When You Are Sad’ is an obvious one, closely matched by a more rhythmic, amped-up cover of ‘Sperm Like Honey’, originally by labelmates Canaan (an incredible band, well worth a dedicated post of their own in the future). Then you have ‘Is Everything Real?’, which may sound very “depechesque” on the surface, but hides a more complex internal architecture, stretching out to a seven-minute runtime. In fact, quite unusually for the genre, no fewer than three tracks here run between seven and nine minutes. That was a deliberate choice, as Diego clarified: “I really like writing songs with a solid, lengthy structure. As for ‘When You Are Sad’, it was composed very instinctively. With our faster pieces, you don’t always notice it, but they’re actually proper little suites that often last several minutes”.

When I spoke to the singer in 2003, The Frozen Autumn had already been around for roughly ten years. I asked him how he envisioned the band another decade down the line, and his answer was honest and down to earth: “It would be enough just to still be here, with the same genuine spirit we have now, and the same passion and inspiration”.

That goal has long since been surpassed. More than thirty years into their story, The Frozen Autumn are still active, and they’ve released strong music both before and after ‘Emotional Screening Device’. Even so, this album remains the ideal point of entry into their world.

CHANCES OF VINYLIZATION: Fair. Their debut album was issued on double LP by Avantgarde Music in 2022, and the band announced on their website that ‘Fragments Of Memories’ might follow soon. Considering that ‘Emotional Screening Device’ came out on the same label as ‘Fragments…’, a 2xLP treatment is not too far-fetched.

🟥 Unvinyl is a series of articles about great music not available on vinyl (at the time of writing). A full index can be found here.