Ben Frost

A U R O R A

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.

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. 

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.

There can be beauty in decay, growth from devastation, and A U R O R A helps open your eyes to that perspective.

Aurora does not disappoint; it continues Ben Frost’s resume as one of the most fascinating experimental musicians in the world.

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.

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.