"New Ro" was premiered by Various Small Flames -
varioussmallflames.co.uk/2023/11/09/frog-new-ro
Full of hope, nostalgia, defeat and lust, Frog describe "GROG" as "both gothic and cartoonish." The album is full of the emotional Americana, weird wordplay, 70s pop experimentation, 90s guitar energy and 60s garage rock swagger that earned songs like "Judy Garland" and "You Know I'm Down" several million Spotify streams.
The cult NY duo have toured the UK and US, and received acclaim and airplay from the likes of Pitchfork, NPR Music, Stereogum, Guardian Music, BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, BBC Scotland, DIY Mag, TLOBF and Clash Magazine. They were also the subject of the "Kings of Blah" documentary film in 2018 (
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsdG3UUBpnE).
PREVIOUS PRAISE FOR FROG:
"The best American guitar record of the year. Seriously. It's like every cult band from the past decade bottled into half an hour of music." – Gold Flake Paint
“Frog sounds like a dirtbag ’Harmony Hall,’ here for it.” – Ian Cohen (Pitchfork)
“The prodigal Frog returns...” – NPR
“Irreverent, strange and just a little addictive." – Clash Magazine
“Imagine the euphoric pop of Small Wonder getting caught in a time warp to the Wild West with Modest Mouse’s ‘Satin in a Coffin’ and you just about scratch the surface." – DIY Mag
“A wealth of subtle nuances, wry homages, and nostalgic narratives that were enough to make listeners lament growing up anywhere other than suburban America.” – The Line of Best Fit
"A splendid piece of work." – Gideon Coe (BBC 6 Music)
“Oh, god. Help me, words. Help me convey what a blessing Frog is.” – Collapse Board
“Locked between the unstoppable force of self-deprecation and the immovable object of the American Dream.” – Various Small Flames
FROM THE ARTIST:
"Grog took a long time – I had kids while making it, my job situation became a lot crazier. Sessions started in early 2020, I had twins in June 2020, and we finished mixing in summer 2023. My brother Steve became a real member of Frog for these recordings and I think the music we made together is a reflection of our relationship. It is a joy to make music with people you love.
There are really exciting places we were able to get to on this record, places that I didn’t know existed before I found them. It feels both gothic and cartoonish to me, big gargoyles, dark skies, storms, but the statues are of Ah! real monsters.
Every song is a step deeper into the abyss. At some point I’ve lost all ability to see the daylight and the darkness envelops me. The twilight bathes the snow as I put my skies back on to drift down the mountain- it is shocking how quiet the world is in the snow. Music is the only time I can ever feel alone.
If KoB is set in New York, and Count Bateman is set in LA in the 70s, this one I think is set in Hades. The whole thing is bathed in flames and the grooves are bubbling bubbling and the devil is a DJ smiling broadly.
At the end of making Grog, and recording the songs for the one after it, I began to start hallucinating music – I’d lay awake and dream entire songs, fully orchestrated, fully realized, that lasted hours and hours. This may mark the last point in my career that I had any vestige of sanity left, but who needed it anyway.
Grog is a drink they used to give sailors- basically, they were trying to stop the British navy from stockpiling their rum ration and then getting blotto and being useless the next day. So, this one admiral changed the ration so that the rum was diluted with water and a little lime juice, in a 4:1 water-rum ratio. The admiral always wore a grogram cloth, and everyone called him Old Grog, so his drink was grog too. I think I first heard of it playing The Secret of Monkey Island – one of the puzzles involves you using grog to burn through steel bars to break some guy out of prison.
You can do incredible things, things you would never in your wildest dreams think you were capable of; all you have to do is require them of yourself."
Love,
Bateman (October 2023)
