We've Not Been Expecting You

The unpredictable Frost* are back with Life In The Wires, a bold double concept album that revisits the mood of Milliontown. Bandleader Jem Godfrey tells Prog why he rolled out the solos on a record he describes as the most fun since their dazzling debut.

- Nick Shilton

Continuity of activity is a hallmark shared by countless successful bands, prog or not. But rules have exceptions and continuity has never been a dominant feature of Frost*.

They’re a band whose career has been punctuated by many stops and starts. Their dazzling debut, Milliontown, launched them onto the progressive scene in 2006, but Frost*’s prime mover, Jem Godfrey, decided to call an abrupt halt to proceedings later that year. He then executed a spectacular volte-face only a few months later, resulting in 2008’s somewhat underwhelming and ironically titled Experiments In Mass Appeal.

After that second album, Frost* went on hiatus, which they eventually interrupted with 2016’s Falling Satellites. Then – a 2020 box set and EP aside – they downed tools again until 2021 when they returned with their fourth album, Day And Age. By Frost*’s irregular standards, releasing Life In The Wires comfortably within four years of its predecessor appears almost unduly hasty and actually threatens to provide the band’s previously haphazard career arc with some continuity.

Speaking to Prog from his studio, The Cube in Kent, Godfrey chuckles as he references the band’s “glacial work rate”. So, what prompted this comparatively swift follow-up?

“I had something to say for once, so it wrote itself, really,” he explains. “It was one of those ideas I had that was floating around and does actually follow on from Day And Age.”

Indeed, the end of that album has an audible link with Life In The Wires.

“They’re in the same universe because the end of that album starts with the beginning of this one. I did that deliberately because I already had a bit of an idea when we did Day And Age that this was a thing that could have legs.