REVIEW: Frontierer - Ultraviolet Parasite
When metal bands that integrate electronic influences are brought up, FRONTIERER deserve to be the first recent example mentioned. 2021’s Oxidized was a breakthrough for the mathcore genre, an uncompromising, brutal fifty minutes of music. Quite frankly, if you were one of those lucky enough to hear it at the time, it likely blew your mind. Since that album, five years have passed - but FRONTIERER have remained active, releasing the stellar The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like a Life Vest as the Night Wept as an EP in late 2024. And now, finally their fourth LP, Ultraviolet Parasite, is set for release. But what are we supposed to expect from it? After all, their last EP, while still containing some of those mind-bending electronic flourishes at points, was decidedly more outwardly mathcore, perhaps they’re phasing it out all together?
Any and all fears of this are immediately quashed on opener and title track, Ultraviolet Parasite, setting the scene with a metallic, fast-paced, two-note melody before all hell breaks loose. Vocalist Chad Kapper’s voice pierces through the mix, his screams all across the track completely unrelenting - even after a short refrain signalling an incoming breakdown, a total shift in tempo. Or is it a polyrhythm? It’s difficult to tell. FRONTIERER have this way of making disorientation a feature of the music, and at a certain point the sheer technicality of the timings feels natural. From there, all that’s left is this visceral aural beating the music provides.
Elsewhere we get songs like Emerging Claustrophobic, a track whose glitchy, borderline IDM instrumentation bring a new flavour to the album. Just listen to those skittering drums around 75 seconds in, seemingly with a mind of their own. The only thing anchoring it within the context of the rest of the album is once again Kapper’s harsh vocals. The same could be said for the track immediately following it, Precursor Sequel and its mathcore-meets-power noise backdrop. An incredibly refreshing listen - nobody else is doing it quite like this. At points it’s next to impossible to tell what’s heavily-modified guitar noise and what comes from a synthesiser - but it mostly doesn’t matter in the face of the sheer brutality on display.
From that point on the album rarely gives you a moment to breathe. The best you’ll get is the 30-second drone intro to The Iodine Bath, which after that point reminds you that you are, in fact, listening to a FRONTIERER record with harsh and angular high-pitched riffs and pounding drums, each guitar stab towards the end provokes the image of a steam valve, with all its screeching and scalding heat.
While they do occasionally pull out a riff that grabs your attention, this band’s real boon is their rhythm section. Moments on tracks like Complacency Gown, where they bend time signatures, or the pummelling intro to Dystopian Fjord, which perhaps grabs the listener and shakes them to a greater degree than anything else on the album up to this point. Even by the time you reach the end of the first minute of that song, the band have dragged you through hell and back. To counteract this though, there’s a notably tranquil, if brief, moment towards the end. A genuinely gorgeous piece of IDM which, as you may have already guessed, gets its party crashed by the band breaking back in just as quickly as they left.
To finish off this monstrous display of sheer force is nearly five-minute closing track, Terraforming Myself. Of course, up to this point, FRONTIERER have had a flair for immediacy, each track storming in and asserting itself through the medium of absolute volume. One would expect the closer to follow a similar trend, and just end on the same note the album started. But here, the band slowly builds up to an unexpectedly melodic climax. There’s even a piano in here! It’s the black sheep of the record for sure, but undoubtedly fits the title of a closing track.
FRONTIERER’s fourth full LP is every bit as striking as their last, with maybe a few minutes total out of the 45-minute runtime giving you any time to collect your bearings. That being said, don’t go in expecting a complete do-over of Oxidized - they bring some new tricks to the table, making for a delightfully intense experience, and asserting themselves as a group that should not be underestimated under any circumstances.
Score: 9/10
Ultraviolet Parasite will be released on 23rd October 2026.
Words: Noise Leonard
Photos: Frontierer
Comments