FROST*
“Did you ever notice how in the bible when God needed to punish
someone, or to make an example, or whenever God needed a
killing, He sent an angel?
Would you ever really want to see an angel?”
So begins the title track to Milliontown, the first album by
Frost*. The track itself is a 27 minute long concept tour –de
–force loosely based around Gordon Houghton’s book ‘The
Apprentice’, a story about Death awaking a five year dead corpse
to replace Hades for seven days to see if he’s up to the job.
But why should a successful pop songwriter form a band and
record a progressive rock album? And how can he have succeeded
as Jem Godfrey and Frost* have with Milliontown?
Jem Godfrey decided to be a keyboard player after watching Brian
Eno on “Top Of The Pops” one evening in 1979. After a few
summers spent learning numerous Genesis songs in lieu of formal
piano training, he was eventually recruited into his older
bother’s neo-prog rock band “Freefall”. By the time he was 17 he
was playing regular gigs at the London Marquee with Freefall as
well as being a frequent performer on the South London blues
circuit.
After a decade away Jem returned to music by way of a
partnership formed with the specific aim of writing hit records.
Four number one hits followed, for Atomic Kitten, Holly Vallance
and X-Factor winner Shayne Ward, between them selling over 3
million copies, as well as numerous top 10 hits and tracks on
several number 1 albums. Most recently, Jem was awarded an Ivor
Novello award for the best selling single of 2005
However, it wasn’t enough.
“After five years of songwriting with three chords and lyrics
that rhyme ‘heart’ with ‘start,’ I had to give my brain some
fresh air,” begins Godfrey. And so Frost* was born.
“When I decided to record a prog album, I went out and bought
around 40 CDs by the leading bands from this genre over the last
few years,” acknowledges Godfrey. “One of these CDs was the Kino
album Picture. So I sent an e-mail to (Kino, Arena and John
Wetton guitarist) John Mitchell and asked him whether he would
be interested in playing on my album. It was a similar case with
Andy Edwards and John Jowitt of IQ. So I ended up with three of
the best musicians from the UK prog scene in my band!”
Frost completed Milliontown, the 26 minute long eponymous final
track of which was inspired by the book The Apprentice by Gordon
Houghton. The album was released in the United States on July
18, 2006 and in Europe on July 24. The band went on a brief tour
to play a selection from the album, supporting Pallas on a four
date tour of the Netherlands and Germany in October 2006.
The songs on the album range far and wide, taking in rock, funk,
industrial sounds and a symphonic approach to arrangement. As
well as the title track, the album varies from the deceivingly
gentle introduction of instrumental opening piece "Hyperventilate" (“Then
BAM!” as one reviewer states; “This song should come with a
defibrillator!”),through the gentle electronica of “Snowman” to
"Black Light Machine", which offers beautiful keyboards, harmony
vocals, gorgeous symphonic moments, and a fantastic John
Mitchell guitar solo.
Godfrey's vision marries the traditional hallmarks of
progressive rock with modern recording and production
techniques.
In 2008, Frost* added guitarist Declan Burke from Darwin's
Radio, and the band is now a quintet.
Godfrey has recently posted several videos on YouTube called the
"Frost* Reports," under the user name Planetfrost. In one of the
videos, Godfrey shows the plans for the band to work on the
brand new album called " Experiments In Mass Appeal " during the
last week of January, February, March, and April and hopes to
have it done by October of 2008.
Look for Frost to bring in a very cool show to RoSfest in 2009.
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Milliontown - 2006
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Experiments In Mass
Appeal
2008 |
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