Quick history lesson: The Frost was a hard-rocking garage band
\nbased in Detroit that released three studio albums in a very brief
\ncareer that only lasted from 1968 to 1970. Led by ace guitarist and
\nlead vocalist Dick Wagner, the band achieved minor success in the
\nnorthwest region with their brand of abrasive hard rock that
\nrecalled the similar sounds of their peers and rivals the MC5, the
\nStooges, the Amboy Dukes, and Alice Cooper. However, after not
\nbeing able to achieve a wider range of success, the Frost split up,
\nwith Dick Wagner going on to become a highly demanded session
\nmusician who eventually lent his brilliant guitar playing and
\nconsiderable songwriting abilities to such superstars as Lou Reed,
\nAlice Coope, and Peter Gabriel throughout the 1970s.<\/p>\n
This brings us to this alleged compilation CD, a false
\nadvertisement if I ever saw one. These aren’t a bunch of tracks
\nculled from the band’s three albums, but rather the entire CD is a
\nlive performance from the Grande Ballroom in Detroit in 1969 — yet
\nnowhere on the front or back of the disc does it mention anything
\nabout a live recording. Only once you flip open the liner notes
\ndoes the truth become clear. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive, but
\nthis bothers me more than it perhaps should. I’m personally not a
\nbig fan of live recordings, so obviously a live album being passed
\noff as a best-of compilation does not sit well with me at all.<\/p>\n
Sure enough, the sound quality throughout is rather weak. The
\nmuffled, sloppy production is quite distracting and prevents the
\nsongs from realizing their full potential. I’m sure a lot of this
\nmaterial sounds better in studio form, whereas here I’m left with a
\nless than stellar impression, which is a shame considering that
\nit’s my first exposure to this band.<\/p>\n
To be fair, the renditions are energetic, and Dick Wagner’s
\nguitar playing is surprisingly diverse, running the gamut from
\ncountryish leads to blues riffs to eastern flavored melodies to
\ndistinctive solos effortlessly. Wagner’s vocals have a soft, almost
\nfolky quality that were unique when compared with the similar bands
\nof the genre that I mentioned in my opening paragraph.<\/p>\n
But too much of the material is standard late ’60s hard rock
\nfare that unfortunately isn’t particularly memorable, at least not
\nin this live form. Stuff like “Donny’s Blues” is about as generic
\nas it gets. The “Take My Hand \/ Mystery Man” medley however is
\nfantastic — a unique display of quirky songwriting that
\nforeshadows the theatrical and bizarre style of the early Alice
\nCooper records to come along shortly. The album-closing frenetic
\nworkout of “We Got To Get Out Of This Place” is a ferocious,
\nseventeen-minute psychedelic stomper that provides the ultimate
\nshowcase for Wagner’s astonishing guitar chops, leaving no doubt in
\nthe listener’s mind as to why he became such a highly sought-after
\nsession musician in the immediate post-Frost years (though I could
\neasily do without the seemingly endless drum solo).<\/p>\n
Obviously, with slightly less than half of the album featuring
\nmusic truly worth listening to, and the fact that the erroneously
\ntitled
\nThe Best Of The Frost<\/i> is in actuality a live album, I cannot
\nreally recommend the album as a starting point. Of course, if
\nyou’re already a Frost aficionado familiar with the studio albums
\nand seek a live account of the band in their prime, then naturally
\nthis disc is worth having. Personally, I have a hunch that the
\nindividual studio albums are a far more impressive listening
\nexperience, and I plan to seek them out and see if I’m correct in
\nthat assumption. Now, if only someone would put out a real “best
\nof” for these guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":26588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6963],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-37834","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-frost","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37834"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}