Year: 2006
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 26 mins. 35 secs.
YouTube link
Did you ever notice how in the Bible whenever God needed to punish someone?
Make an example?
Or whenever God needed a killing?
He sent an angel.
Would you ever really want to see an angel?
Well, it's like I already wrote before (#18). Frost* is the absolute best new progressive rock band that I have come across in many, many years. And while their second album Experiments in Mass Appeal (2008) is a truly fine piece of work, it still pales in comparison with the powerhouse that was their debut. Released in the summer of 2006, there really are no weak tracks on Milliontown and strongest of them all is the title track which closes the album and runs for nearly half an hour.
Not only is Milliontown a real motherlode of continuous invention, it is also played by musicians that are masters of their instruments and the production values of the album are simply stupefying. I haven't heard a single album in that entire decade that sounded as good. On the debut album, band leader Jem Godfrey is particularly fond of big sounds and the way they were recorded cannot fail to impress, even if the music isn't to a listener's liking.
Like many other tracks in the top 20, Milliontown is also comprised of several movements. The first three of them use almost precisely the first half of its running time: the third movement (entitled The Only Survivors) ends at exactly 13 mins. and 16 secs. into the song. And this is a very important point. Until then, Milliontown has progressed like the very best symphonic prog song ever composed, performed and recorded. Nothing surpasses this first half, not even the upcoming #1 of this list.
Herein lies the song's only weakness that ultimately causes it to fall from the first place to the second. Frost* has played an impeccable prog masterwork and escalated it to a level so incredibly high that it becomes their own undoing. The beginning of the fourth movement brings us back down from prog heaven fast, and the band doesn't exactly know how to successfully tie it to the slightly pompous ending of the previous movement. And that's it. It takes them nearly two minutes to get back on track, but even then, nothing during the rest of the song really feels quite like its first half.
Milliontown's only flaw is that it peaks too early.
Later on, Frost* catches up the speed once again and the instrumental sequence that almost closes the track is once again magnificient. Following the just about perfect ending, a weird thing however happens. There is a silence that lasts approximately 20 seconds, after which there follows a short epilogue played with a piano. This is another slight flaw in the song. I have never understood why this epilogue was necessary. It's not bad, but it's not really needed either. Is this supposed to be a minute and a half long "hidden track" at the end of the album that is not even meant to be a part of Milliontown the song?
These almost meaningless imperfections notwithstanding, Milliontown is the most perfect piece of music that mankind has ever been able to produce. You can imagine my astonishment when, escaping the awfulness of the Eurovision Song Contest finals in the evening of 16 May 2009, I followed Apple's iTunes Genius Recommendation to check this album out and then spent an evening of listening to it with my headphones on, in an ecstatic state to say the least.
While it may be Jem Godfrey who has fathered Frost* and is the person to mostly thank for this incredible album as well as song, I once again want to emphasize that the musicianship on the album is also of the very highest order. John Mitchell must be one of the best guitar players working today, and Milliontown gives him ample opportunities to prove just that. Similarly, Andy Edwards is one of the three best drummers I know of, right up there with Terry Bozzio and Neil Peart.
So, Jem, please! Try to get the third Frost* album done as soon as you can and when you do, please give John and Andy their deserved chances to shine like they do on Milliontown! I trust you to include the new #1 top 20 long prog masterpiece on that forthcoming album! For now, you will have to do with the second place.
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