Review: Frost* - Signs (Song)

Originally, I had planned to write up a review for the full Frost* album Falling Satellites.
It's been out for a while now, and while dibbling and dabbling here and there for reviews I had one third to half of it done. Yet, I was rambling too much and saying too little, so it ended up as a draft somewhere deep down in the archives.

Enter December 1st: in pure Frostmas tradition the video for Signs was released today, and what better opportunity to revisit that album by at least writing a few lines about this song?

As per the tradition for third albums, Falling Satellites is a bit of an odd one out. There's a number of reasons why that's the case and one of them is this song.
I do like it a lot, but it takes a while to wrangle its way into the soundscape that typically surrounds a Frost* song. It may even come off as completely inconsistent, but that's rather a feature of the song's first few minutes.

Right off the bat, Signs is oddly intimate and sounds like it'd be more suited to one of John Mitchell's various (solo) outputs - there is a certain familiarity to the recent It Bites albums, for sure, and that's not just because Mitchell provides lead vocals on Signs.
However, this isn't exactly a fair assessment, as Falling Satellites is all about new experiences that are both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. "Telling your friends that you've just outgrown them", as Mitchell sings, is a sentiment one may feel somewhere deep down inside - in a form that defies words - yet it keeps boiling until it reaches that certain threshold where it can't be ignored any further and has to be confronted, with nothing but uncharted territory ahead.


The song's first half is fairly standard in its structure, but makes up for it musically and in pulling your heartstrings: one of the four chorus points is bound to hit close to home.
After two and a half minutes, the song then gradually merges more Frost*-typical elements into its core, absorbing the unfamiliar, yet familiar mood in order to process it, coming out on the other side with something greater than the sum of its parts.
Signs kicks every single doubt whether this is actually a Frost* song out the window about a minute later, when keyboard and guitar work reminiscent of The Dividing Line joins in and drives the song forward into said uncharted territory; but now there's help in dealing with it as the familiarity that is the Frost*-sound follows suit.

Towards the end, Signs builds up some steam while repeating the chorus, charging through the wall that's made of weakness - a musical therapy session of sorts that lends support by sharing the energy the song is creating.

Signs grew on me. It had to grow, as that's an integral part of the song: growth, thus overcoming the ghosts that haunt us. In one way or another.

I really hope Frost* (or their label) decide to promote Falling Satellites with another music video, and I dearly hope, against all sanity, that it's Towerblock as that gives me another excuse to write about that song. It's simply too mad to ignore.

You can watch the official video on Youtube: Frost* - Signs

There's also a fantastic video for Numbers, off the same album: Frost* - Numbers