it’s true – you stick around long enough and you’ll see the world repeat a thing or two. the difference between the positive and negative in that statement is defined by whether the repitition carries with it the marked burden of that historical passage of time and some sort of advancement in honor of it, or whether it shrugs off this weight and instead chooses to cut to the easy chase of at best hommage, and at worst, well . . . frommage.
sitting here, alone, with a few of the new boulevard lunar ales and listening to national frost’s outstanding lost gospels album, i’m occasionally reminded of the best parts of toad the wet sprocket’s pale album. i think it’s the sincere almost there, but still obviously, painfully short earnestness of the vocals. now, that may stink of adult-oriented radio to some only familiar with a few of toad’s singles, but for anyone familiar with that album in particular, there’s an overwhelming fog of uncommitted despair hanging over it, and for some reason, it’s coming back to me quite heavily here. most importantly, the two are quite different, but to that point, they are separated by almost fifteen years of time.
the album is, vocally, a slow burner, with subdued and dusky phrasing that builds a type of suspense recognizable to those of us skilled in indifference. ultimately though, it is the dense tension created by the multiple elements swirling around the voices that really draw me in to what national frost is creating here. guitars chug and jag while drums crash or synths blurp – i imagine this saskatchewan-based band puts on quite a live show. there’s never really an uplifting, bright moment in the eight tracks of this almost-40 minute release, and honestly, that’s fine by me. national frost never dips into melodrama, they never take the easy way out with staged theatrics; instead they channel an all-too-familiar feeling of understood understatedness that allows me to get lost in the sine waves as they fight it out around the zero-point.
it’s become remarkably evident to me over the last couple of months that the idea of indie rock is back with a sense of desparate urgency, thankfully at the expense of the execution of indie rock, pun somewhat intended. what are we going to do about this? and what are we going to call it? where do these bands who make their living playing the strip mall bars of major metropolitan centers, much less areas like kansas city or the reaches of canada, fit in when they’ve got more to say and more ways to say it than the acts filling up the headling spots at the huge summer music festival?
like the legions of artists before them, and hopefully those afterwards, the integrity inherent in national frost’s output will hopefully keep them moving towards at least an integer of success. it’s bands like this that you pull for because the fewer day jobs this band has, the more they’ll be able to create. for us. and when it gets to that point, the only thing i can really say to a band like this is thank you.
please take some time to check out the band’s myspace and if you are anywhere on the listed tour dates, please be sure to see them. here’s to hoping they make it down here to the midwest soon.
