To intrigue or not to intrigue? Is that not the question? You get a CD through the post. Nothing unusual there. All it has with it is a postcard with “Please review” on it. You’d just throw it on the pile wouldn’t you? That’s what I did anyway and duly deprived myself of some really rather fine rock music from Chicago band Frosting. Next time I will be more careful…
The key thing about this album is the maturity demonstrated both in the song writing and in the performances. The opening track “Comfortable Enough”, for example, is a devilishly cool run through a mid life crisis balanced precariously atop plastic drums and bourbon fuelled guitars and not content with setting about the displacement of Jackson Browne, Frosting then venture into the quirky powerpop territory of Khalid Hanifi with the bouncy “Katrina Wells” and the harmonious “Pity Girl”. Lest I forget (only I wasn’t going to), Laura Lopardo escapes from doing harmony vocals to shine in the elegant and reflective “Go insane”.
It was particularly interesting to note how well this album gels. A lot of the music I hear these days barely rises above demo standard but here the polish has been well and truly applied and, in many ways, “Fresh Frosting” is like a classic west coast rock album only with the kind of lyrical intelligence and style that you would expect of someone like Ray Davies (actually, he is name checked in the lyrics so I must be right about that!).
All in all, “Fresh Frosting” is not quite perfect but it’s not far off it.