Hear Frontierer Rip Through on Urgent New Single ‘Glacial Plasma’

Frontierer drop their listeners straight into a confounding melee of mathcore and noisy metal on their latest song “Glacial Plasma,” from their upcoming album Oxidized, out October 1st.

Unleashed on Bandcamp Friday, the bruiser of a track helped catapult the Scotland/U.S. group straight to the top of Bandcamp sales, selling out 500 LPs in the span of an hour. It’s business as usual for Frontierer, as they stick close to their chaotic, unhinged sound but also introduce a searing guitar lead that hangs in the air in the bridge section of “Glacial Plasma.” Knowing fully well that their previous albums – Orange Mathematics and Unloved – were dense and quite a demanding listen in some senses, they kept a closer eye on pacing and sequencing the new album. Guitarist and songwriter Pedram Valiani says, “It made more sense to mix up the pace of extremities across the span of the record. The idea being that if an outsider listened to both singles at opposite ends of the record, they’d be curious about what happens in the middle knowing what they’ve heard towards the start and end.”

“Glacial Plasma” appears towards the end of Oxidized, as track number 14 out of 16. The lyrics speak of agonizing struggle and how it’s only through shedding blood, one can discover their realities. Thematically, Valiani says they pick up from where they left off on Unloved, like an “aftermath and recovery.” The guitarist adds, “Our purpose is re-imagined as we were forced to rebuild as an oxidized shell of our former self. Hardened and altered from past experiences. Virtually the way life is, especially in hard times, you learn the lesson after being weathered and beaten down and come out on the other side with a new outlook mentally and especially physically in how you carry yourself. You have earned your stripes, sort of speak. Usually, the outcome will be a better you, but it’s not always the case.”

Some of the songs off Oxidized had their origin four years ago, even before Unloved released in 2018. Valiani says the songs changed right up until “the final moments” of packaging it for distribution. While they have members spread out in different parts, the pandemic didn’t change much in terms of Fronterier’s work ethic. Tours and festival appearances may remain canceled, but it’s led them to focus on “other elements” of the record, like visuals. “I’ve personally undergone a big career change recently so it was great to have this record complete, sitting on a hard drive whilst I could focus my attention elsewhere,” says Valiani, who works as a software engineer at a media company.

Watch the video for “Glacial Plasma” below and hear on more platforms here. Pre-order ‘Oxidized’ here.