Ben Frost
By The Throat

THE REVIEW

Cold, I said. Cold. The cold you feel in Iceland. The cold that a New Zealander by birth might experience when moving and tasting the ice surrounding Reykjavik.

Never before has the landscape and climate component been so important in understanding the sounds that freeze our ears and then every single appendage of our body. Deep into the limbs. Can a record change our mood? Yes, I would say so. Can a record make us feel strong emotions? Here too, I feel I can affirm. But can a record make us feel cold? Cold? Shivers? "By The Throat" succeeds fully.

But it's not just cold. I was saying that beyond the climate component, the landscape also plays a significant role, and here the first, devastating track of the record comes to my aid. "Killshot". Sonic gunshots (rifle?) tear apart the record and your ears. But it's not noise for its own sake. The shots are aimed at someone, at something. You can hear snow, you can see snow, a blizzard. And gunshots. (ok, I haven’t smoked anything, nor taken other drugs, I swear.)

I don't like reviews that tell the album song by song. They make them (the albums) seem like a collection of singles, disconnected. But it's not like that here. There is a story. It's right in front of you, simple and clear. Like the Carpathians full of wolves ready to tear you apart in the second track. Like heartbeats that stop in the third. I don't know if Ben Frost and I take the same drugs, or have the same dealer, but I see his record. And it's icy and ruthless. Primarily with my ears. But it's not just targeting them. It goes much deeper.

How deep I'll let you discover, if you have the courage to listen to it in the darkness of your rooms, under the warmth of your blankets. It just has to snow outside. But not even that. The album is enough to make it snow.

Ahhh, reading around, it seems that no one has noticed (at least among Italian reviewers) that the last 3 songs of the album “Through the Glass of the Roof”, “Through the Roof of Your Mouth”, “Through the Mouth of Your Eye” are one of the verses from the song "Disintegration" by The Cure (a song I love madly and which makes me adore this Ben Frost even more!!!)

P.S.:

this IS NOT one of those ambient albums to listen to carelessly.

If you too want my "visions," you must listen to it carefully (and preferably with headphones).