All progressive fans should know about the various projects of 'John Mitchell' who has a very busy musical life. A search in myprogmusic gives you a sample of the extent of his career over the past ten years (see here). In this search, I realize that I have never reviewed an album by 'Frost*' in which he is also present and whose founder is the multi-instrumentalist and singer 'Jem Godfrey', their latest album 'Day And Age' dating from 2021. This is therefore a first for me and I have not chosen the shortest studio recording of this project, since 'Life In The Wires' which was released in October 2024, is almost 90 minutes long! It is therefore a very copious concept album which is offered to us and the story takes us into a world run by artificial intelligence in which 'Noaio' is the main character. Of course, this kind of album does not give itself up immediately and can only be appreciated if you take the time to tame it over the course of listening.
Given the density of this album and in order not to unnecessarily weigh down this review, I will not go from title to title but I would simply like to highlight the strong points that made me like 'Life In The Wires'. If we had to define what progressive is, we could definitely take this double CD as an example: first of all, we embark on a story with a futuristic theme (not so futuristic after all!) in which we follow the wanderings of 'Noaio' trying to find the DJ 'Livewire' that he heard on an old radio that his mother gave him as a gift, which is not to the taste of 'All Seeing Eye', an artificial intelligence that monitors all the inhabitants.
From a musical point of view, to stick well to the different parts of the story, the 14 compositions all have their own personality which brings a nice diversity to the whole but which requires being open to different atmospheres quite far from each other: to take a comparison, it's as if we were on a boat on which we are confronted with a succession of very calm periods and others much more tumultuous. In the first CD, this is evidenced by the continuation of the four compositions 'Evaporator', 'Strange World', 'Idiot Box' (see the video here) and 'Absent Friends', and the second CD begins in a very muscular way with the duo 'School/Propergander' which well illustrates the power of control of 'All Seeing Eye' after an 'Absent Friends' which is a magnificent piano/voice ballad. This diversity of atmospheres is also found within certain compositions: we can cite the two parts of the title song with of course the second part which offers nearly 16 minutes of imaginative and sought-after progressive in which it is good to get lost in the mazes of this long development.
In addition, one of the necessary characteristics to be placed in the drawer of progressive music is the existence of substantial instrumental parts peppering each composition, and in the case of this album, we can say that 'Jem Godfrey' has gone all out because he has done everything to offer us sumptuous passages with numerous keyboard solos but also guitar solos highlighting 'John Mitchell': in 'This House of Winter', that of 'John Mitchell' is sumptuous and we can also cite those of the two parts of 'Life in the Wires' (see video of part 1 above), 'School' or even 'Moral and Consequence' (see the video here) which are certainly those which gave me the more fun given the more complex construction with its different rhythmic changes. And finally, we cannot ignore the impeccable production that highlights the talent of each artist, because this formation is not limited only to 'Jem Godfrey' and 'John Mitchell' but also integrates the rhythm section of 'Nathan King' and 'Craig Blundell' who is a model of the genre by doing a goldsmith's work and always adapting very precisely to the different atmospheres of the complex and sought-after constructions of each composition.
In summary, 'Frost*' continues its journey with an album that could be described as a benchmark for progressive music with all the ingredients that we want to find in this style of music, which, on the other hand, risks necessarily limiting it to an informed audience because 'Life In The Wires' is of an extraordinary richness and density that requires that we linger over it, taming it over time, listening after listening... | |
