There are bands who ease you into an album. Then there is Frozen Crown.
The Milan, Italy-based power-metal outfit have built their reputation on speed, melody and an almost gleefully relentless guitar attack, and The Legend of the Six Kings looks set to continue that tradition while giving the band's fantasy storytelling a darker, moredramatic edge. The sixth Frozen Crown studio album is due 2 October 2026 through Napalm Records, making it the band's second release for the label following 2024's War Hearts.
And, yes, the numbers line up rather neatly: this is Frozen Crown's sixth album, performed by a six-piece, with "six" right there in the title. But the real story is what the band does with all that momentum once the music starts.
Six Kings, ten songs, zero hanging around
Frozen Crown performing at Milady Metalfest, 2025. Photo credit: Dario De Marco, Frozen Crown (1) (54310650398), via Wikimedia Commons.
The album contains ten tracks, opening with "Lightning in the Sky" and moving through"Who Wants to Burn in Heaven", "Reborn", "The One", "Iris", "Winter Hearts", "River of Time", "Through the Fire", "To the Stars" and the closing title track. The sequence is confirmed by Frozen Crown's own Bandcamp listing and Napalm Records' album information.
The first impression is exactly what fans of the band might expect: guitars pushed to thefront, rapid-fire drumming, big melodic hooks and choruses seemingly engineered for a festival crowd with one collective set of raised horns.
But The Legend of the Six Kings isn't simply War Hearts with another coat of armour. Napalm describes the new record as taking a more narrative approach, with a somewhat darker atmosphere, while the band themselves have framed the album as another attempt to distil their trademark sound into concise, direct songs.
That emphasis on concision is significant. Frozen Crown have never sounded particularly interested in wasting time, and the new material appears to embrace thatinstinct rather than fighting it.
Jade takes the crown
At the centre of the attack is vocalist Giada "Jade" Etro, whose role becomesparticularly interesting on this record. According to Napalm's album description, Etrotakes a more sinister vocal approach than on some of the band's earlier material, matching the darker world established by the album's fantasy narrative.
She is joined by founding guitarist and vocalist Federico Mondelli, whose growled andclean vocals provide another layer to the band's sound. The current six-piece also features Niso Tomasini on drums, Francesco Zof on bass, and guitarists Alessia Lanzone and Aleksandra Stamenkovic.
That twin-guitar presence is hardly incidental. Frozen Crown's identity has long revolved around the collision of melodic European power metal with old-school heavy-metalriffing and speed-metal urgency. Their 2024 album War Hearts was explicitly presentedby Napalm as the band's first record as a six-piece, with Lanzone's arrival adding another dimension to the guitar arrangements.
Frozen Crown at the Parma Tattoo Nerd Fest, 2023. Photo credit: Dario De Marco, Frozen Crown @ Parma Tattoo Nerd Fest – Area Fieristica di Parma (PR) 10-06-2023 (12) (52980752416), via Wikimedia Commons.
From War Hearts to a darker kingdom
The road to The Legend of the Six Kings has been relatively rapid. Frozen Crown formed in Milan in 2017, released their debut The Fallen King in 2018, followed it with Crowned in Frost in 2019, Winterbane in 2021 and Call of the North in 2023. War Hearts arrived in October 2024 as their Napalm Records debut.
That history matters because Frozen Crown's development has been less about abandoning their core sound than tightening the machinery around it. The new album'smaterial reportedly leans into fantasy and Tolkien-inspired storytelling while retaining the band's emphasis on energetic melodies and immediately memorable choruses.
The already released material gives a taste of that approach. "Who Wants to Burn inHeaven" brings choir-backed grandeur and a groove-heavy chorus, while "Reborn" is framed as an anthem about perseverance and collective strength. "The One", meanwhile, continues the album's fantasy-driven narrative.
Then there is the title track itself, which pushes further into the band's dramatic side. Napalm describes it as featuring Etro alongside Mondelli's growled and clean vocals, with the arrangement moving toward melodic-death-metal territory during its heavierpassages.
Full throttle, but with a little more shadow
What makes The Legend of the Six Kings intriguing is that Frozen Crown don't appear to be trying to reinvent power metal. Instead, they're doubling down on the things that have defined them from the start: speed, dual-guitar melody, soaring vocals, fantasy imagery and songs built to hit quickly.
The difference is in the atmosphere.
Where earlier Frozen Crown records could lean heavily into youthful exuberance and high-speed attack, the new album's concept gives those familiar ingredients a darker backdrop. The result is a record that looks designed to function both as a fast-moving power-metal listen and as a larger fantasy narrative.
With release day arriving on 2 October 2026, The Legend of the Six Kings is about to leave the kingdom of advance singles and promotional copy and enter the real test: the speakers, the headphones, the car stereo and, eventually, the festival stage.
If the album's stated mission is to strip away unnecessary frills and concentrate the essence of Frozen Crown into sharper, more direct songs, the six-piece have certainly chosen an appropriately uncompromising title.
The crown is ready. Now comes the charge.