The band’s second and latest release, The Heart of the Matador, shows the band confidently stretching out in terms of both musical fortitude and studio savvy. Analogously speaking, if Freeze were Alexander’s outnumbered Macedonian army assembling on the plains of Gaugamela to assess a strategic plan of attack, then The Heart of the Matador is most assuredly the undaunted charge into battle that brought historic victory over the ample armies of King Darius III. Sweeping historic metaphors aside, the pertinent words here are “rock” and “roll”. The sound is unapologetically thick and bleeding. The keen sense of almost poetic lyrical imagery, delivered with a healthy dose of old school swagger is enough to inspire even the most jaded of fists back into the air. All of the elements here integrate seamlessly, almost to the point of begging the question, “Is The Heart of the Matador a songwriter’s record cleverly masquerading as a brazen collection of swaggering rockers or is it a rocker’s record masquerading artfully as a shrewdly constructed songwriter’s opus, coyly impinging on concept album territory?” The knowing is in the listening…and the believing is in the knowing. The Heart of the Matador was conceived and recorded at the band’s own Hey! Low Sound System and mixed by the inimitable Joel Hamilton at Studio G, Brooklyn.