“Crunchy alt-rock and just a bit of shoegaze.” — Brooklyn Vegan
“Off-kilter, yearning rock music that strives for a populism that’s considered a bit declassé by most of their peers and, as such, badly missed.” — Pitchfork
Chicago band Pink Frost announce their first new album in 5 years today, sharing the video for the title track from their forthcoming album Until The Summer Comes via Brooklyn Vegan. Watch and share the high production value video directed by Chris Hershman (Alabama Shakes, Wynonna Judd) for “Until The Summer Comes”
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“It was a new torture, the waiting,” says Pink Frost vocalist/guitarist Adam Lukas.
When life suddenly froze for all of us, it wasn’t the downtime that was unbearable, it was the growing uncertainty as time dragged on that all of our loose threads would ever be connected.
The Chicago band had just completed recording their fourth album — splitting the studio time with sister band Touched By Ghoul (whose 2020 Cancel The World album title proved prophetic) — when plans to reconvene in France with longtime engineer Gregoire Yeche to mix in April 2020 became impossible.
When Gregoire eventually returned to Chicago in 2021, life in limbo seemed the new normal. Yet, the band felt somehow liberated. “We were like ‘F**k it, let’s make our dream record,’” Lukas says. “We went in depth in a way we never have before. There are no compromises on this album. No cringeworthy oversights. We almost lost our minds doing it, but I’m happy we did.”
Indeed, the 9-song album is a feast of hooks and subtle transformations that shows both a slight return to the band’s previous indie-punk take on Smashing Pumpkins style oversized alt-rock, and their ever-growing palette of shoegaze, drone and anthemic rock. There’s even an almost peak NIN, Wax Trax industrial vibe to some tracks that underscores how the band continues to wield new ideas.
“We lost (guitarist) Paige Sandlin during the pandemic,” Lukas says. “But gained Angela from Touched By Ghoul, who now plays guitar and contributed some vocals on the LP, and brings a whole new excitement to the live show.”
Until The Summer Comes was recorded in Chicago at Steve Albini’s legendary Electrical Audio with longtime engineer Gregoire Yeche, just as the band has done on New Minds (2017), Sundowning (2013) and the Traitors EP (2014). “Electrical Audio is almost like another member of the band at this point,” Lukas says. “There is a purity to their method that captures the essence of the performance and preserves it in this magical 3-D way.”
The album opens with the title track’s thumping toms in a marching rhythm, soon joined by buzzing fuzz guitars before the whole song erupts in a huge chorus with chunky guitars reminiscent of peak Downward Spiral era NIN. “Two Faces” is an explosive diatribe driven home by bassist Alex Shumard’s lunging 4-string. “On A Clear Day (You Can See The End of The World)” sets a Beatles-esque acoustic guitar led melody atop psychedelic haze and rollicking drums. “Halo” serves up a lush shoegaze ballad in which drummer Nate Furstenau nods to My Bloody Valentine’s hybrid of drum machines and live drums for powerful effect. “Feed The Hungry Bee” closes the album with a repetitively building tension that leads into a dramatic finish that’s certain to be a live favorite.
Pink Frost’s previous albums received an onslaught of praise from such revered outlets as Pitchfork, SPIN, Noisey, Brooklyn Vegan, Magnet Magazine and Chicago Reader, as well as song placements in a feature film (“The Lookalike”), TV’s Shameless, The Rookie, The Vampire Diaries, CSI: Miami and more. In December 2015, Pink Frost released a completely remixed, rethought and remastered version of their debut album Gargoyle Days, originally issued under the band’s former name Apteka.
Until The Summer Comes will be available on LP, CD and download on September 16th, 2022 via Under Road Records. Pre-orders are available
HERE.
