Frost* is set to release their fifth studio album on October 18, Life In The Wires, which follows the excellent Day and Age of 2021. Once again, Jem Godfrey is the prime mover, this time handling all of the lead vocals in addition to keyboards and songwriting. John Mitchell returns on guitars, with Nathan King on bass and Craig Blundell on drums. There are nearly ninety(!) minutes of music here, and it is all terrific. Not a single moment is filler.
As Godfrey explains,
“It’s actually a sort of continuation from Day and Age. The first track on the new album starts with the end of the last track from that album “Repeat to Fade,” where the static comes up and a voice says “Can you hear me?” I remember putting that in when we did Day and Age as a possible little hook for the future; a character somewhere out there in Day and Age land trying to be heard. What does he want to say? Can anybody hear him? Day and Age kind of sets up the world that this character lives in and Life in the Wires tells his story”.
The album chronicles the adventures of a young man, Naio, who lives in the near future, in a world dominated by AI. One night, he hears a voice coming out of the static on an old AM radio asking, “Can you hear me?” From that initial contact, Naio goes on a quest to find out who is the person behind the Livewire radio broadcasts. Meanwhile, the AI that runs the world, “The All-Seeing Eye”, is on Naio’s trail, trying to prevent him from connecting with the mysterious man on the radio:
You wanna take me down for hearing voices on my radio
But I have seen your way of life and, thank you, I don’t want to know
You feed the people food and fear to keep them all compliant
But I won’t play your game so now you’ll fight to keep me silent
Interspersed between tracks are nuggets of speech from Livewire Radio broadcaster: “Hey, this is Livewire, voice of the free. And tonight we’re taking calls. Heh! I’m just kidding… Hahahaha!”
That’s the storyline, so what about the music? I have to say, I haven’t been this blown away by an album in years. Day and Age was my favorite album of 2021, and Life In The Wires is even better. Jem Godfrey is the master of crafting attractive and heartfelt songs, and every song on Life In The Wires delivers. Every style is visited here: ballads, straightforward rock, very heavy rock, and, of course, prog. I have listened to the entire album at least two dozen times, and I keep finding new things to delight in.
“Evaporator” is an extended, upbeat, almost funky tune with a nice 80s vibe. “Absent Friends” is a gorgeous and delicate piano-based ballad that reminds me of classic Aqualung (the group, not the Tull album). “School (Introducing the All Seeing Eye)” is a blistering instrumental where Mitchell shows off his chops.
Everything reaches a climax with the final three tracks, “Moral and Consequence”, “Life In The Wires (Part 2)”, and “Starting Fires”. “Moral and Consequence” has one of the most irresistible hooks I’ve ever heard. At the end of its more than 8 minutes, I was still begging for more, until the opening chords of “Life In The Wires (Part 2)”. This track is almost 16 minutes of near-perfect prog perfection. It calls to mind the best of Abacab – era Genesis, but, to my ears, it is better produced than that classic album. The closer, “Starting Fires” is simply beautiful – a somber and sweet melody sung to some spare musical backing. It seems as if Naio has connected with Livewire, and they are going to start a resistance to the Eye:
We’re making waves
We’re starting fires
We can’t go back
to ParadiseWe’re starting fires
We’re starting fires
We’re starting fires
We’re starting fires
2024 is coming to close, and so far, Life In The Wires is the Album of the Year for me. We’ve been blessed with some great music this year, in particular The Bardic Depths album, What We Really Like In Stories, but my gosh, Frost* has put together an album for the ages.
Here is the official video for “Moral and Consequence”:
Spirit of Cecilia 
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