Style: mathcore, djent, progressive metal, extreme metal (harsh vocals 95% of the time)
Recommended for fans of: Car Bomb, Ion Dissonance, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Vildhjarta, We Butter the Bread with Butter
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 23 October 2026

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“What if death is nothing but sound?”

Sound dictates our livelihoods. Mothers are told to play Mozart to their growing children in the womb to stimulate their movement and brain development.¹ We sing lullabies to newborns, watching as they sleep to the melodies of our voices. Children innately know rhythms and melody, hearing the call of their names and quickly recognizing patterns in spoken language. Music shapes our personalities in our teens and young adulthood: cliques, communities, and friendships are all born from our preferred choice of soundwaves. Even death—an assumed relief from noise and stimulation—is marked by sound. In mythology and religion alike, earth-shattering calls symbolize the end of time; Archangel Gabriel’s trumpets sound the arrival of Judgement day, while Heimdallr’s Gjallarhorn reverberates across all nine worlds to bring forth Ragnarok. Truly, the nature of sound is absolute. 

But in all of sound’s importance, there is no noise in the world that is as loud, engulfing, and ear-splitting as the thralls of Frontierer. 

“Electrical noise.”

The composition and pedal work of Frontierer’s impenetrable instrumental line makes a tricky show of electrical wizardry. Frontierer’s jagged djent climaxes are serrated by piercing guitar twangs influenced by The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza; the twangs ionise and pierce vicious octave jumps, penetrating even the shortest moments of quiet. The safe, hypnotic dance of djenty breakdowns are torn apart by relentless electrical storms. This sensual assault is Frontierer’s bread and butter, and they’ve returned to manipulate waveforms in their first full length release since 2021, Ultraviolet Parasite. 

“You hear it forever. Sound all around.”

While Ultraviolet Parasite is undoubtedly abrasive, there’s a beauty to Fronterier’s methodical madness. The guitars continue to speak through every form of soundwave. Gatling sprays of sound return from Orange Mathematics; tendrils of noise akin to the album cover latch on to every stray note; zaps, buzzes, sparks, and lasers decorate the Car Bomb-y thrashing soundscape, permanently bathed in extreme distortion. Coupled with a mirrored bass that’s downtuned all the way to the Earth’s core, the weight of these electrical flourishes becomes massively dense. The tenacious drumwork is both precisely punchy and noisy—as if every snappy rimshot was made on a snare covered in water, spraying droplets all across the recording microphone. Chad Kapper and Pedram Valiani’s harsh vocal performances function as another instrument, panning left to right and contributing equal parts rhythmic tension and melodic function. 

When the pieces come together, the result is a barrage against the soundscape that’s modulated to Fronterier’s will. Tempos change on a dime in tracks like “Dystopian Fjord”, while dissecting every nanosecond of speed becomes the focus in a track like “Wool Glasses”. What works in one track may not in another, as seen when the laser-centric guitar tones of “Monotone Canteen” attempt to re-emerge on “Emerging Claustrophobic”, but are engulfed by heavy rhythm-section punches. 

“How awful.”

The hypnotism from Frontierer’s last LP Oxidized is largely absent on Ultraviolet Parasite—colorfully rhythmic breakdowns are traded in for angular beatings from the rhythm section, cutting through the constantly uniform noise with haughty, downtuned beatdowns. Not every moment on Ultraviolet Parasite is dictated by this binary static, however: the needle-like guitars in “The Iodine Bath” accompany an insanely catchy polyrhythmic dance between the vocals and drums, interrupted by a brief whirlwind of heavily tuned vocals and a slowed reprisal of the track’s main theme. “Retrograde F” and “Terraforming Myself” remove the noise completely² and spotlight emotive singing, with the former also featuring sticky, breakcore-esque drumming. Frontierer find the space to feature Tony Wolski of The Armed on “Ions & Oxygen Rockets”, whose vocals add a powerfully dramatic punk flair. These sparks of creative songwriting offer a respite from the over-stuffed soundscape—one that’s like an overly-carbonated drink, where the bubbles may give you an ache or two, but the flavors are still sweet on the tongue. 

“Uniform, white.”³

In the past, Frontierer meticulously quilted sawtooth, sine, and square waves to create a soundscape that was massive yet addictive. Ultraviolet Parasite approaches sound a little differently, taking these soundwaves and breaking them apart until nothing except 90-degree angles and sharp edges remain; the tracks, in their timed succinctness, tend to bleed into each other because of this. Ultraviolet Parasite is undoubtedly frenetic and maintains the quality Frontierer look to offer, yet the focus changing from booming rhythmic control to total soundscape noise makes Ultraviolet Parasite an album best enjoyed by fans of electronic music more than those partial to djent or mathcore. The total immersion that engulfed any listener on Oxidized and Unloved is a bit more difficult to find on this latest release. Despite the plethora of technical tools available to Frontierer, the overall theme of Ultraviolet Parasite prescribes uniformity and maximalism across the distortion of the instruments. Nevertheless, a few listens of Ultraviolet Parasite will leave you feeling electrocuted. And, regardless of your stance on the extremities of metal, Frontierer succeed in reminding us of one thing: in our lives, sound and its vibration is constant and absolute. 

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Recommended tracks: Wool Glasses, Emerging Claustrophobic, Ions & Oxygen Rockets, Retrograde F, The Iodine Bath
You may also like: Sun Guts, The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Sectioned, Pupil Slicer, getting your brain power washed
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Frontierer is:
– Pedram Valiani (Guitar)
– Chad Kapper (Vocals)
– Dan Stevenson (Guitar)
– Iain Macleod (Bass)
– Luke Coursey (Drums)
With guests:
– Tony Wolski (Vocals on “Ions & Oxygen Rockets)

1. My child will be listening to a concoction of sludgy post-metal hits. No, my mom didn’t take Tylenol before she had me, why do you ask? ↩︎
2.  se = FALSE ↩︎
3. A quote by Jack Gladley in White Noise, written by Don DeLillo. In this instance, he and his wife contemplate the meaning of death in respect to their mortality, and whether death is simply an extension of the mundane, ‘white noise’ that they’ve become desensitized to while completing the motions of everyday life. ↩︎