#frost*

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Frost* / Qantas / Headquarters – Wellness Centre / Sign / 2014

[ravenfleesfire]

Liking concept artists/bands with lore is so embarrassing because every time you give music recs to people you have to add a disclaimer like yeah sorry this band comes with homework

[mendelpalace]

[the-music-i-love]

Frost* - Day and Age

A perfectly cohesive and well-tied narrative. Sonically expressive, catchy, and moving. One of the greatest albums I've ever listened to, and on every listen so far, I've had to go front-to-back, even if initially I only wanted to listen to one track.

This prog-rock masterpiece features heavy drums, roaring guitars, an addictively good lead singer, as well as lulling piano, and sprinkles of opera singing. The instrumentation is well thought out, the sound is consistent throughout the record, not one track is boring, and manages to stay catchy at the same time.

My favourite tracks have to be The Boy Who Stood Still, due to its unique story and gorgeous sound, and the finishing combo of Kill the Orchestra into Repeat to Fade, as they embody a perfectly satisfying climax and then fading into oblivion.

You will be left with goosebumps.

Enjoy yourselves, you scum.

Band's website

Buy the album

Listen to it on YouTube

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[robdwebster]

Stuff of the year, 2016

Y’alright peeps. Don’t mind me, just shitting out a thing.

Game of the year: 01. Pokémon Sun & Moon 02. Stardew Valley 03. Pokémon Go

A rather threadbare year for games I was actually interested in, but I never really noticed because the Pokémon train just kept rolling. Pokémon Sun & Moon are comfortably the best-designed and most creatively fertile games in the series, and it feels absolutely berserk that this 20 year old franchise, this silly little monster-catching game that people told me I’d have grown out of by the age of ten, is continuing to snowball.

Side note: I’m looking at the release schedule for 2017 right now, and between... (big gasp) Mass Effect, Splatoon, Zelda, Cuphead, Thimbleweed Park, Ever Oasis, Lady Layton, Sonic Mania, Fire Emblem Heroes and Yooka-Laylee (...!) I may never have to leave the house. 

Other games I liked: BoxBoxBoy!, Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, Pokkén Tournament, ReCore

TV show of the year: 01. Orange is the New Black 02. Taskmaster 03. Stranger Things

Orange is the New Black kicked it out of the park this year. It’s always been very solid television, but each series had been a little weaker than the last up until 2016, where it whipped up a perfect storm. The amazing, loathsome villain in C.O. Piscatella did well to kerb the show’s increasing cosiness, and I have never known a show that empathises so well with villains without forgiving their actions or playing down the horror. A new high.

Meanwhile, Taskmaster has very quietly become the most reliably hilarious show on television, and treated us to not one but two full-length series. It’s not just that Taskmaster is reliably funny, it’s that it makes me laugh until I hurt a little bit. The silliest and best show on UK television.

Other shows I liked: BoJack Horseman, Black Mirror, Dave Gorman’s Modern Life is Good-ish, Designated Survivor, Dragon’s Den, Penny Dreadful, Robot Wars, Siblings, The Apprentice, The O.A.

 Album of the year: 01. Frost* - Falling Satellites 02. The Heavy - Hurt & the Merciless 03. Dream Theater - The Astonishing

A very ambitious but very flawed offering from Dream Theater this year made space for two smaller artists to take the top spots. I’ve been flapping on about Frost* for the best part of ten years, now, and although Falling Satellites is a little more conventionally “prog” than I was expecting, there’s still plenty of that defiant spirit, they’re continuing to rail against the clichés of the genre. Or maybe it’s just that Jem Godfrey’s talent for writing memorable, infectious and crucially modern songs is irrepressible - Numbers, Towerblock and Lantern are personal favourites.

The Heavy came to my attention more recently, and while Hurt & the Merciless doesn’t rip up their rulebook it did produce a couple of their very catchiest songs ever. What Happened to the Love? was my most-listened track of the year, according to Last.FM. It may never leave my head.

Other albums I liked: Errrr...

Film of the year: 01. Your Name 02. 10 Cloverfield Lane 03. Deadpool

I cried. Not even embarrassed. Your Name is gorgeous, and works best if you know as little about it as possible. It’s a body-swapping fantasy film, and it’s mesmerising. I gather it’s only just opening in the U.S. in 2017 - you are in for a treat.

10 Cloverfield Lane was a brilliant film in its own right, and if tying it in with the Cloverfield universe was what it took to put my bum on that seat, fine. Besides which, I rather like the idea of sequels that aren’t sequels. I hate the idea that each film in a series needs to compete with its daddy’s shadow, so I think it’s quite neat that 10 Cloverfield Lane was an altogether different beast.

Other films I liked: Dr. Strange, Fantastic Beasts..., Finding Dory, Money Monster, Star Trek Beyond, The Jungle Book

Late discovery of the year: 01. Spirited Away (film) 02. Rick & Morty (TV) 03. Undertale (game)

Rick & Morty was the more immediately satisfying of the three. I love the loose, improvisational feel, and the focus on quantity over quality means I am not at all concerned about it exhausting itself the same way The Simpsons, Futurama and Family Guy all eventually did (some sooner than others) - but we’ll see how it goes. 

Undertale didn’t quite catch my imagination in quite the same way it did many others, but I love how much it makes the interface part of the story by revealing characters through its bullet-hell elements, and how playing as a pacifist isn’t boring - it doesn’t cheat you out of any gameplay. Smartly written.

Spirited Away was a funny one, because I didn’t immediately adore it. I enjoyed the film when I watched it, went away and thought, “Okay, that’s about a 7/10, 8/10,” but it just sort of... played on my mind. There’s something very special and haunting about it that goes far beyond the story itself - the world ensnared me. It stole my heart, a little bit, in a low-key way that’s very rare. I love it dearly.