A U R O R A

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Nolan" is the key track here and one of the most impressive compositions in recent memory, an ever-evolving tableau that encompasses the widest array of Frost's sonic predilections. His compositions aimed straight for the jugular, whether via distorted violence in “Killshot,” tense heart-monitor dronescapes on “O God Protect Me,” or as a gracefully harrowing descent — complete with wolf howls — in “Leo Needs a New Pair of Shoes. This album is more vibrant than its cover suggests, existing more in the prismatic ice crystals refracting light in that mist.

Firmly rooted in Dark Ambient, Noise and Industrial musics, past albums like By The Throat and Theory Of Machines have all been punishing but breathtaking affairs, focusing strongly on both physical pain and psychological trauma. The inexorable - seemingly inevitable - culmination of this evolution, Frost’s fifth solo outing, A U R O R A, is a brutal yet glorious release that doubles up as an unbending overture to fervour and force. It sounds like they're trying to fight off the swarms of artificial noise with their bare hands, like on "Nolan," which strips down before its skeleton is overrun by synths that wrap around the drums like barbed wire. Fittingly, it’s this final track, and not the pyrotechnics of 'Venter' or 'Nolan', which sounds most savage: it’s the untamed, unleashed and explosive finale, as Frost unleashes every musical sinew and leaves the speakers quivering.Venter” is clearly the album’s centerpiece, built from a stony foundation on ghostly howls, brutal drum and tumbling bells work evolving into a harrowing and dangerous beast before the curtain falls and, just as quickly as it came, the harshness escapes. A little divot marks the end of our coast and the start of penultimate “Sola Fide” whereupon we are brought right back into the fray. Nothing more than a brief burst of energy and light, it comes and goes violently, mirroring those same short but energetic lives in its crushing noise and jarring flickers of piercing drone. 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.

Five years after its release it still stands almost entirely alone, incomparable and unparalleled, a rare feat indeed. Unravelling from an almost strutting rhythmic litany, the threatening industrialism of “Secant” is a highlight. There's a cello that plays really low-volume in the third-to-last song and it sounds like it's dissonant!In the intervening five years, Frost has worked under the mentorship of Brian Eno and taken on an impressive range of projects, from composing the score for Julia Leigh’s film Sleeping Beauty to having a hand in recording and producing Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath 1972 and Colin Stetson’s New History Warfare albums, and writing and directing an opera based on Iain Banks’ novel The Wasp Factory. The Teeth Behind the Kisses” is a ghost in the machine, silently lurking and threatening although it’s barely there. The resulting atmosphere is dense and airless, with real-world signifiers largely absent – although the insect-like whine on ‘Sola Fide’ and a groan-like wind raising dust on ‘Diphenyl Oxalate’ hint at the surrounding environment.

The entire record exists in that split second before the aircraft is ripped asunder, G-forces bending and ripping metal and you, the pilot, teetering on the brink of blacking out. The frighteningly cacophonous and the creeping minimal dominate the album, leaving little room for the barren middle ground where Frost truly excels.It segues into the main riff, a collection of gorgeous synth notes awash in a slowly parting storm of white noise, the fading remnants of some electronic dance fragment framed for one final moment in an apocalyptic future. If anything the only real downfall of this album is the slight lack of cohesion as compared to Ben Frost's earlier works, but it's still a must listen for anyone looking into dark ambient or experimental music, and a welcome addition for previous Ben Frost fans. He cast himself as a kind of endurance artist on the cover of his 2007 album Theory of Machines and, in 2013, directed his own theatrical adaption of Iain Banks’ novel The Wasp Factory.