What happens when you combine shouted/screeched vocals with repetitious synth lines, ear piercing sounds, and samples that sound like everything is disintegrating around you? You get Frozen Niagara Falls.
Compared to the other Prurient album's I've heard, Frozen Niagara Falls is as melodic and accessible as a pop album. If I hadn't heard something like Black Vase before this album I would think that this is one of the harshest albums in my collection. As it is, I've become so desensitized to the noise sounds that the sound does not phase me as much as I think it should.
Frozen Niagara Falls feels like a noise album for people that are trying to get into noise. Sure there are tracks where things go off the rails and the headache inducing tones come and dominate, but they are hardly the main focus of the album.
The album feels more like a series of scenes viewed as a distant observer. Some are slow and brooding... almost like a dark ambient track. Others are more overt, containing keyboard synth melodies that repeat over and over with spoken or shouted words over them. Others still are just mechanical sounds formed together in a rhythmic fashion.
There is true variety on this album's two hour run time, and it's a lot to take in all at once. Despite this I don't find myself getting overwhelmed by the album like I tend to do with a lot of other noise. Frozen Niagara falls treads the line of accessibility and inaccessibility perfectly. Just when you are ready to give up because of the harsh noise Prurient throws you a bone of melody or a soft moment amongst the chaos.
While I still prefer the absolute audio destruction of Black Vase, Frozen Niagara Falls has proven to be an album that I will be visiting more frequently because of its more forgiving nature. If you are trying to get into noise, this is a great place to start.
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