By: Matt Stevens
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02 Islington Academy, London | July 30, 2016
Frost* are an unusual band. Formed by award winning songwriter and keyboard player Jem Godfrey to play progressive music that is informed by state of the art production that sadly rarely features in the genre. It’s progressive rather than strictly “prog” and that’s a very good thing. They rarely play live and this makes their fans even more devoted. There is a real sense of community between the audience and the band themselves, there is a lot of love in the room.
The upstairs at the Islington Academy is absolutely rammed as I arrive to see Jem and guitarist John Mitchell play a duo set to open the gig, they play solo and Frost* obscurities to an enraptured crowd with a nice sideline in performance art.
The full band Frost*’s set opens with some tunes from the new album Falling Satellites and it’s immediately apparent the quality of the musicianship is very high, classy players and lovely vocal harmonies. The audience response verges on the euphoric, especially when the band kick into fan favourite ‘Hyperventilate’ from the Milliontown record.
Drummer Craig Blundell (best known for his work with Steven Wilson) is really powerful and works well with bassist Nathan King (guitarist in Level 42 and brother of Mark). They sound like an ongoing powerful, tight band rather than the top end session players are, no pussyfooting here. Jem is a superb keyboard player, his leads often bring to mind Jan Hammer’s in The Mahavishnu Orchestra. There is a real chemistry here between the players with lots of energy.
Frost* don’t need to bank on past glories, they mostly focus on the new record tonight and it’s all good stuff. By the time they encore with ‘Black Light Machine’ they really sound like a more progressive Jellyfish let loose in a music technology shop. More ideas in one song than many bands have over an entire career.
The only thing missing for me was a rendition of ‘The Dividing Line’, an epic prog pop tune that somehow mixes Cornelius, metal and very classy songwriting.
This was a great gig by superb players with top tunes and is good as song orientated progressive music gets in 2016.
