Words: Ayfer Simms
Ayfer Simms in her customary flowery and lyrical style follow’s up her review of Frog‘s Kind Of Blah with more praise for the New York band’s precursor, a extended self-titled – or mini album if you like – EP that’s presently doing the rounds again.
Frog ‘Frog’ (Audio Antihero)
Frog’s mini album is a prelude to their LP released last May: We witness the birth of a style, a murmur of dynamic instruments leading the mind within oneself and compelling us to keep the eyes closed while listening: the lo-fi sound resonates with a pulp. The vocals, a mixture of broken tone and soft lament emerge as if from a faraway place; the vibrations are spiced up with country music, a style cleverly distorted by a very indie alternative grip.
Indeed, the voice, distant, is enclosed in its own world, in heedlessly arranged rock tunes plunged in a sea of electric guitars saturating the air with a giddy energy. The music fills that space right before noise appears, the metallic tinkle is heartfelt with its subtle melodies and cords rubbing on our internal clock. There’s a buildup: Frog is the pistil of the flower, the orchid’s tongue fluttering, brave and charged with a rebellious, yet emotional satirical attitude. The stories are like a stick in the heart, inspired by portraits of hazelnuts characters, Frog sings: “the minds a beautiful thing to waste” and we linger together amid an autumnal local town, with songs like ‘Nancy Kerrigan’, and again, Frog sings “Time is a big city that rolls up majestically” driving us in the mind of the fractious American writer of the 19th century, Irving, borrowing its title and elements of Ichabod Crane for a song. Those little tiny references combined with a poetic mindset throughout the lyrics make for a rich ride, as well as the accumulation of echoes, acute singing, hoarse and delicate at the same time. Lost in a trance-like state, the mini album wears the air of an explosive cryptic state of the mind.
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