Frodus – F-Letter

1996 • Double Deuce Records

There is little to say about Frodus, sadly, as they are sadly not very well-known and I simply don't know much about the band. But I do know that they have a pretty impressively-sized back catalogue of quality post-hardcore, despite their first few albums being almost totally unknown. By this, their third, they have pretty much solidified their sound into as it would be on their two well-known albums (Conglomerate International and And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea); this one is just as good.

Frodus plays a relatively heavy and crunchy brand of post-hardcore here, kind of like a less-bombastic Refused, but with nice big solid riffs and really nice songwriting. There are some sections of clean mellow guitar, some grooving, head-bangable breakdown riffs, some dissonant noisy bits, etc., and they are masterful at fitting it all together. They also manage to make it a pretty fun experience as well and there isn't much, if any, filler to speak of; the quality remains high throughout and the band's skill at their instruments is also really good, especially the drumming; it's very dynamic and the rhythms have a lot of nice things like brief tempo modulations that sound cool.

One interesting thing about this album is that I've only listened to it a handful of times (maybe two or three) but it already feels very comfortable and familiar. Maybe it's because they sound a lot like other D.C. hardcore bands I enjoy (Fugazi, anyone?), but the music also just feels very honest. By this I refer to elements like the relatively simple songwriting, very real-sounding vocals, things like that. They don't throw any surprises at the listener; F-Letter is mostly very straightforward, and that's not a bad thing—it's actually exactly what this kind of music needs in order for it to be good.

I'm still pretty shocked that this album is still quite obscure as I think it ranks among Frodus' best (although their stuff is pretty consistently good) and this is a band that definitely can compete with Fugazi et al. for post-hardcore stardom. I guess it didn't happen, but at least they left us a lot to listen to and they're still around, so who knows?

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