MILLIONTOWN

Sure, it would be easy to write about Selling England or some other Genesis masterpiece, but I wanted something more modern.

Milliontown by Frost is the best album I've purchased this year (yes, I know, I'm a little late to the album, I was out of Prog Rock for about ten years).

I first heard No Me, No You on a Progressive Rock podcast and it blew me away, I needed more. I searched through the archives and found Hyperventilate and Black Light Machine. Again, fantastic, I needed more, shortly thereafter, I picked up the album and continue to say Wow! every time that I listen to it.

This album contains 4 fantastic songs and two good songs.

Hyperventilate provides an enchanting introduction to the layers you'll find throughout the entire album, keyboard wizardry interspersed with crunching guitar yet retaining a firm grip on melody throughout.

No Me, No You grips you with a ballsy metalish crunch only to blindside the listener with a shift from left field into a rolling 12/8 chorus that gets repeated throughout the song. Jem Godfrey's pop expertise shines through in the chorus, bridge and outro coalescing the prog oddities with almost pop-like hooks. The result, pure majesty.

Snowman is a good enough song, but it is the best example of my biggest criticism of the album. Many parts of the album feature entirely too much processing on the lead vocals. The album sounds great, why muddy up Snowman and the beginning of Milliontown by sweeping the vocals to the point of distraction?

The Other Me, enjoyable but unremarkable.

Black Light Machine is ten minutes of proggy goodness full of great guitar work.

Milliontown, the 26 minute epic is a beautifully constructed piece but also the place to insert my second criticism of the album. It would have been a much stronger 24.5 minute epic, the 90 seconds of piano afterthought strikes me as kind of a Transatlantic ploy to simply make the 'epic' longer.

Other than that, Milliontown (the song) is a wonderfully enjoyable excursion through the afterlife from the eyes of a Zombie (or at least that's the most I can gather from the references to the book). Similar to the remainder of the album, it's full of almost pop sounding hooks, progressive wizardry, lush layers and thoughtful lyrics.

A final thought, it's so nice hearing a prog keyboard player who doesn't spend the entire album trying to mimic a Mellotron. Love the sound of the Mellotron, but come on guys, it's 2008 (or 2006 when this was released). Let's be progressive. Enjoy the music released in the 70's for what it was don't try to recreate it 40 years later. Go buy a Roland or something from this decade.

Wonderful album, I highly recommend it.

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