Frohm – “Dawn of Electric Age” album review

Here and there, you are being introduced to some music and names you have not previously heard. But as I am, of course, always drawn to the music that suits my personal taste, I decided to give this album a try.
Being yet another project from Sweden on my table recently, this proves only one thing: there is some special bond between these people and electronic scene. I have just spotted Mats’ song “Follow” on the Swedish Electro vol 3” compilation and was curious about the rest.
Frohm debut album “Dawn of Electric Age” consists of 6 tracks only, but while you’re in there, there is still enough time for it to take you somewhere.

Frohm flirts with old electronic sounds and combines them with new music making approach, and as a result he offers an upgraded version of that vintage old school vibe.
“Silly Machinery” is even giving me some thoughts of italo disco with a pinch of Giorgio Moroder; we can hear talking vocals and steady beats which create a cold atmosphere; I can imagine some formal cut suits, ties and hairdoes in a dim, strobe-lit dance floor. “Cendres” of course will provoke memories of Visage because of the lyrics in French spoken by a female voice, a bit of a good recipe for creating a needed mystery. Again, the overall cold feeling is sustained by the vocals and atmospheric synth sounds which paint some icy landscapes. Frohm is keeping up the tempo on the next track “The Low” but the synthetic feel is here pushed to the limit and as he uses a vocoder for the vocals. It makes the whole track even more “artificial”. By the fourth tack “I Played an American”, as the first beats start kicking in, I just want to strip off my shirt and wave it across the room; instead I’m starting to dance in my chair, and just when you think “ok, is there going to be some shift now”, indeed there there is! Frohm doesn’t want to get you all that hypnotised. Unsuspectingly, there’s one unusual twist; a melody starts out of nowhere and Mats’ voice, clear and crisp, speaks one line repeatedly: “I played an American”, but you don’t need much more from this fascinating male voice to spice up the melody with his tone, and if you listen very carefully at the very end of the song, he starts SINGING when you almost can’t even hear him any more… put your headphones on! 😉
Back to some colder sound on “Arrange” and a bit of cooling off after the previous track, and to “Follow”, as the last track, the one I’ve heard before. This track is a totally modern piece with an old synth pop feel to it. As I said before, a bit of Human League-ish but in 2015, that doesn’t in any case mean a cloned or recycled idea, but flirting with some influences that are still all very dear to us, and even Phillip Oakey would have done it himself 😉 Mats’ music and voice is something surely to treasure and if you are into new synth music with a bit of nostalgia powder in your face, try Frohm out!

Tracklist:

released December 7, 2015