A U R O R A

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Fittingly, it’s this final track, and not the pyrotechnics of 'Venter' or 'Nolan', which sounds most savage: it’s the untamed, unleashed and explosive finale, as Frost unleashes every musical sinew and leaves the speakers quivering. Normal ambient that has spoken word or field recordings overneath it, and the subject matter gets a bit vulgar?A U R O R A aims directly, through its monolithic construction, at blinding luminescent alchemy; not with benign heavenly beauty but through decimating magnetic force. See Gwen Fletcher demonstrate the adorable Jane’s Doodles stamp collection on HobbyMaker this Wednesday!

Couple this luminosity with Frost’s rededication to the quiet-quiet-extremely-quiet-then-earsplitting Mogwai school of dynamics (he tweeted his admiration for the Glaswegians' 'Christmas Steps' during the album’s final mastering sessions) with his three master percussionists and the end result is a record availing itself of the musical equivalent of economies of scale.

You hear minimalism buried in the fuzz, and it’s also easy to tell that Frost is fond of industrial, punk, and metal. In particular this gives the whole record a tremendous feeling of scale, the gargantuan echo of the production casting earlier, more minimalist and claustrophobic excursions into sharp relief.

Frost enlists the services of drummers Greg Fox (formerly of Liturgy) and the legend that is Thor Harris of the Swans, plus multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily.

Fox and Harris’s drums are particularly menacing here, rising in tandem with a swell of sustained notes, ominous peals and harsh tones. With Fox and Harris’ clannish beats melding with Frost’s flirting, teasing electronics, the track erupts in a firecracker of yearning bass and disjointed synth melodies, “Diphenyl Oxalate” and lead single “Venter” soon morphing into a single unforgiving ambush. For the remaining four and a half minutes, these strands fluctuate, growing more intense, but also more refined. The cold on this CD (though probably falsely felt a bit because of his surname being Frost) permeates the fact that it's a summertime in Florida, and I don't think I've ever been so eager for an album of this kind to do to me what it does.