UK progressive rockers, Frost*, recently announced the release of their brand new double concept album, Life In The Wires, due out on October 18 via InsideOutMusic.
“Every prog band worth their salt really should do a double album, shouldn't they?” asks Frost* frontman Jem Godfrey. “We've always kind of had this idea of wanting to do one. So I sat down last summer and thought, well, I'm just gonna have to get my head down and go for it.”
Today sees the release of the third single from the album, titled "Idiot Box", and you can watch the Christian Rios-directed video for the track below.
Jem comments of the track: “The cover of our album Day And Age was five figures standing with megaphones, blasting out their message as loud as possible. The observation was that the world loves to broadcast now, but isn’t so keen on listening. As ‘Life In The Wires’ is a continuation of Day And Age so ‘Idiot Box’ is a further exploration of that idea. At this point in the story, the Meso are burning with a quiet rage because Naio’s more interested in listening than talking. He has a different opinion and any difference of opinion must be eradicated! That’s the trouble with living in this day and age, the writing’s on the wall. Thankfully he’s got one eye skywards and is not a boy that stands still…
Christian Rios has delivered another neon dream glimpse into Naio’s world with the fantastic video that he managed to complete as Hurricane Helene was bearing down on him last week so serious kudos to him for that.”
“It’s actually a continuation from Day And Age,” explains Godfrey, “the first track on the new album starts with the end of the last track from that album 'Repeat to Fade', where the static comes up and a voice says "Can you hear me?”. I remember putting that in when we did Day And Age as a possible little hook for the future; a character somewhere out there in Day And Age land trying to be heard. What does he want to say? Can anybody hear him? Day And Age kind of sets up the world that this character lives in and 'Life In The Wires' tells his story."
The story revolves around the main character Naio, an aimless kid heading for a meaningless future in an A.I. run world. He hears an old DJ talking on the ancient AM radio his mother once gave him and decides to trace the source of the signal and find “Livewire” to see if there’s a better future out there. However, the All Seeing Eye is less than impressed at this bid for independent thought and fights back. Soon Naio finds himself pursued across the country by an outraged mob as he tries to locate the home of Livewire and his freedom. Tune in at www.lifeinthewires.com and see if you can hear Livewire on the radio.
Helping create this parallel world are the “classic” Frost* lineup of guitarist John Mitchell, bassist Nathan King, and returning drummer Craig Blundell.
Fans of the band’s masterful debut album Milliontown (2006) will enjoy the band revisiting the style that made that debut album one of the most successful prog rock albums of the last 20 years, a fact that was not lost on Godfrey as he was writing this new record.
“With Day And Age, we made it a very specific point: we're not doing any solos, we'll do clever arrangements. And we enjoyed that discipline, but this time I thought it might be good to row back on that position a bit. Plus, I wanted to have a little bit of a nod to Milliontown with this album, because it's been nearly 20 years since Milliontown came out and I’m still proud of it. The 15-minute title track has a few of those Milliontown moments in it which were great fun to do again.”
Life In The Wires will be available as a Limited 2CD, Gatefold 140g 2LP & as Digital Album, with subtle difference across the three formats for added interest. The album features artwork design by Carl Glover, who also designed the cover of ‘Day And Age’.
Pre-order here.
Tracklisting:
CD1:
"Skywaving"
"Life In The Wires, Part 1"
"This House Of Winter"
"The Solid State Orchestra"
"Evaporator"
"Strange World"
"Idiot Box"
"Absent Friends"
CD2:
"School (Introducing The All Seeing Eye)"
"Propergander"
"Sign Of Life"
"Moral And Consequence"
"Life In The Wires, Part 2"
"Starting Fires"
"Life In The Wires, Part 1" video:
"Moral And Consequence" video:
