His disciplined approach and bleak yet massively creative imagination delivers a particularly 21st century industrial music of his own design. A U R O R A is dark, dreadful, and dramatic; it is also a masterpiece.
Where 2009's By The Throat was ruthless but exacting, this one feels genuinely unhinged—and that unpredictability makes it far more thrilling than any engineered suspense could have been.
A U R O R A can be heard as Frost’s attempt to create something physical, and it stands above the rest of his discography.
There can be beauty in decay, growth from devastation, and A U R O R A helps open your eyes to that perspective.
Frost’s brand of menace has always been intricate and complex, but where on By The Throat and Theory Of Machines he would counter harsh noise with softening ambient and post-rock touches, A U R O R A feels more purely cathartic, though never one-dimensional or static.
Ben Frost has pulled off something quite remarkable with A U R O R A in making a record that's pretty terrifying in places yet so utterly irresistible.
Aurora does not disappoint; it continues Ben Frost’s resume as one of the most fascinating experimental musicians in the world.
There is a epic scale to many of these tracks, and there is also an underlying and undeniable sense of violence. Yet curiously Aurora is also one of Frost’s most accessible and positive sounding records, and one of his most metallic and industrial efforts to date.
It appears that Frost has almost entirely detached himself from the organic strands of humanity and earthed sentiments these earlier works quoted, producing defections of machined drang and blazed intensity that climb at a dislocated remove from anything communicable or assimilable.
I have returned to this a handful of times over the past month, particularly at night in bed and it has grown on me even more.
Wonderful assortment of dark ambient and post industrial soundscapes for one of the most offputting releases in electronic music
Lost behind the industial smoke and the invisible drama we watch ambient at its darkest hour.
A U R O R A ...... Creates a dark atmosphere around my room but the record when your listening is so creative. The sounds and feeling of it is incredible and its a experience that is truly unique. This was actually my first record by Frost that i've listened to but damn will i say his sound and style has left a great impression on me.
Many people may find it unbearably loud. But this album is a pulsating, granulated chaos that roars with the energy and radiance of a quasar. And Ben Frost manages to tame this explosion of sound through emotional pulsating melodies and intricate beats.
Extra tracks:
Rare Decay: 100
1 | Flex, 2:50 | 73 |
2 | Nolan 6:58 | 87 |
3 | The Teeth Behind Kisses 3:13 | 83 |
4 | Secant 4:55 | 83 |
5 | Diphenyl Oxalate 1:31 | 93 |
6 | Venter 6:45 | 87 |
7 | No Sorrowing 4:28 | 90 |
8 | Sola fide 6:27 | 87 |
9 | A Single Point of Blinding Light 3:18 | 83 |
#11 | / | Clash |
#14 | / | Sputnikmusic |
#17 | / | PopMatters |
#21 | / | musicOMH |
#33 | / | Pretty Much Amazing |
#35 | / | Drowned in Sound |
#41 | / | Crack Magazine |
#48 | / | SPIN |
#50 | / | Pitchfork |
/ | AllMusic |