Review Summary: Modern progressive rock at its best
There are some times in my life when I’ve blindly bought records from bands whose sound I’ve barely experienced and haven’t given proper consideration. This policy can be a real gamble, since it has landed me with mediocre releases like Trivium’s
The Crusade and Yngwie Malmsteen’s
Fire and Ice, decent albums that I listen to periodically like Threshold’s
Hypothetical or, occasionally, gamechanging albums that turn into instant staples; Opeth’s
Blackwater Park, Dream Theater’s
Octavarium and Children of Bodom’s
Hatebreeder were all important blind finds for me in this regard. When I saw Frost*'s
Milliontown recommended in a review of Porcupine Tree’s
Stupid Dream (a tenuous comparison but I'm not complaining), I decided to give it a go.
The result is a stunner.
Milliontown takes a festive, warm atmosphere and fleshes it out with dynamism and instrumental nuance. Opener "Hyperventilate" is a good indicator of its sound; technical, catchy and majestic, it draws the listener into a winter wonderland of Frost*’s own making.
Milliontown's root tendencies are apparent here: masterful keyboard-driven songwriting that has attracted serious praise from none other than Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess. The keys and guitars play off one another fantastically, and this interplay is a strong foundation for
Milliontown's many solos. The vocals are also excellent and suit the mix neatly. These strengths are evident throughout the album, particularly in its opening and closing stretches.
However, these tracks are all distinct. "No Me No You" is much darker, urgent than you would expect from the follow-up to the buoyant "Hyperventilate" (and, curiously, it sounds like the song 30 Seconds To Mars have spent their career trying to write). It shows that Frost* aren’t afraid to include their heavier influences in their sound, and they succeed as such. On the other hand, while "No Me No You" was still backed by a wonderland of uplifting melodies, "The Other Me" takes a goofball industrial approach and lands as the album's oddest track. It's ultra-catchy and succeeds in its experimentation, fitting in well with its darker atmosphere. This song is a highlight for its disturbing lyrics and razor-sharp hooks. The variety that these two tracks offer is a great addition to
Milliontown, since they make it a far more interesting album to hear.
Whereas "No Me No You" and "The Other Me" took Frost*’s sound into darker territory, "Snowman" takes the opposite approach, slowing the pace and removing the guitar from the mix almost completely. It's a soft track with a slightly melancholy tone, suiting the album's overall sound while adding a slightly different tangent. The vocals are showcased here better than most of the other songs and resonate with clear, understated emotional conviction.
Up to this point,
Milliontown is an consistent album that covers an impressive amount of ground, but the final two tracks raise the standard considerably. They're also enormous: "Black Light Machine" and "Milliontown" make up over 50% of the album between them, so their shared strength is greatly auspicious. "Black Light Machine" is the guitar highlight of the album, opening with a catchy riff with delay effects that combine perfectly with the poppy vocals at the start. The riff is maintained as the song develops, but it isn't until the arrangement fades into ambiance and the second guitar solo comes in that things really hit their stride. This solo exemplifies the album's warm tone, and the song evolves beautifully hereon out: the vocals return to the fore and tone things down until the songs explodes into a glorious four-minute instrumental that with such an raucous set of grooves that you'd almost expect the band to end things with a bang there and then..
To their great credit, Frost* chose not to do as such, but rather to round things off with the mother of all epics. "Milliontown" is a staggeringly ambitious and utterly riveting track throughout every phase of its intimidating twenty-six minutes. It opens with an ominous sample, which sets the tone as such:
Do you ever notice that in the Bible, whenever God needed to punish someone...
Make an example...
Or whenever God needed a killing...
He sent an angel?
Would you ever really want to see an angel?
From here, the song progresses slowly through a composite structure, with great conviction; the vocals and keyboards steal the spotlight, but the band as a whole are at the top of their game here. Many a prog band would have fluffed the sustained intrigue over multiple segments, but Frost* pull off "Milliontown" with such power, emotion and seamlessness that it holds its own fantastically. This is the best part of an album in which each and every song is individually fantastic.
So, if you like progressive rock in any shape or form, do your best to obtain a copy of Milliontown as I did; it's a hugely worthwhile gem that exemplifies the best qualities of contemporary prog.
