Frontierer The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like a Life Vest As the Night Wept

Misaligned metal gears crunching and grinding. Crooked, stained teeth gnashing and gnawing. Rusty freight trains a few feet away roaring by your head going 100 MPH. Furious two-steps pounding you mercilessly over the head over and over as your brain turns to mush.

These are some of the images flashing through my addled skull as I try to digest the newest effort from the Scottish/American self-labeled "sonic assault" band Frontierer. Going for the award for the most awkward/longest-titled EP ever, the boys from Frontierer are back with a new self-release called The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like a Life Vest As the Night Wept.  

Let's get at least one thing out of the way - this is not the kind of music you put on at a party for shits and giggles - these are the types of tunes you crank in your car when you want everyone to shut the f**k up and look around awkwardly as their eardrums get fried. The rhythm that does exist lives under layers of punishing stop/start riffs and machine-gun drum blasts. Time-signature changes that would give Dillinger Escape Plan and Botch fans half-chubs are plentiful here.

The boys in Frontierer have always done a nice job varying up the noise (tiny electronic breakdowns, small ethereal pauses, etc.) and this EP thankfully does the same. Opener “The Skull Burned” starts with lead man Chad Kapper screaming over feedback and squealing guitars, before the rest of the crew launches into a furious two-step. It later transitions to a slow trudge Car Bomb-esque breakdown that sounds like the aforementioned freight trains exploding in your face.

Middle tracks “Wearing Hell” and “Like a Life Vest” continue the ferocity, only getting more heavy and heavy and heavy as they go on. Robotic vocals over pew-pews and vocals like "You're only here for seconds and then you choke" over a peaceful keyboard melody before launching back into strangulation and chaos are all on the menu.

Pedram Valiani, the mastermind behind most of the writing for Frontierer, as well as the mixing and recording, really brought a spooky, futuristic vibe to this newest effort. Occasional spoken, AI-infused vocals over fuzzy feedback and bludgeoning guitars sound like we're in the middle of the war with the machines and we're losing, TBH.   

Closer “As the Night Wept” caps it all off with nifty work from Kapper and co., where his screams match the intensity and tune of the guitars for most of the track, yo-yoing up and down from high-pitched squeals to rumbling riffs and crater-worthy breakdowns. The last minute or so of "As the Night Wept" is the heaviest portion of the EP.

Bottom Line: Is Frontierer easy to listen to? F**k no. But good things are seldom easy, and The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like a Life Vest as the Night Wept is the epitome of getting the payout after hard work. I just wish there was more of it. Heading out on tour soon with Better Lovers and Greyhaven in the UK, those of you lucky enough to see this lineup live will enjoy it. Just pack a helmet and boots to defend yourself.