Description
Ben Frost’s first solo studio album in 6 years; a bracing treatise on experimental metallurgy and power ambient starring MY DISCO and Regis spar, Liam Andrews, and prog metal guitarist Greg Kubacki, recorded with Ingo Krauss – RIYL Persher, Swans, O.L.D., The Body, The Haxan Cloak…
The scorched earth tone and drama of ’Scope Neglect’ marks Ben Frost’s return to his trvest artform after years soundtracking film and TV, most notably ‘Dark’ and ‘1899’. His seething new motherload drops 10 years square since his landmark album ‘A U R O R A’, and can be heard to ratchet that LP’s electrified angst in key with fiercely detuned metal guitars galvanised with an epic synth thrust that clearly carries over from his work scoring moving image. The Aussie-born, Iceland-based artist takes care to keep it all instrumental and filter out metal’s more conventional attributes of lyrics and drums, intently isolating and rendering the guitars and synths with white hot, surging dynamics and a swarming biliousness that place his sound most acutely on a plane beside fellow soundtrack composer Bobby Krlic aka The Haxan Cloak or the radical metal wrangling of Blawan & Pariah’s Persher.
Written and recorded at Candy Bomber studio in Berlin with sought-after engineer Ingo Krauss, whom Frost had previously encountered while working with Swans, the album represents a newfound fire in the belly for Frost’s work. Flanked by Melbourne bassist Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, Eros, Regis), and seared with lead axe by Greg Kubacki, the album sees Frost’s various aesthetic circles – power ambient, soundtracks, industrial noise – bleed in spectacular fashion. It’s strong material, especially the opening duo of metal-riffing minimalism ‘Lamb Shift’ and ‘Chimera’.
