Frog – Grog
Audio Antihero / Tape Wormies
There comes a point for many creatives when you realise that your art isn’t going to make you enough money to live. You’re not going to pay the rent with your quirky illustrations, your experimental novel isn’t going to heat your flat. More pertinently, your DIY label releasing superlative under-the-radar leftfield pop isn’t going to put food on the table and your band’s albums featuring some of the best goddamn songs ever written aren’t going to get your kids through college.
That’s the harsh truth but for the sake of goodness, we must do what we can to forget about the money and make art. We’ve got to carry on creating because without self-expression we’re just existing. Life without art is no kind of life at all.
Out there, the world is a maelstrom of misery: unspeakable horrors, unimaginable suffering, deep-seated division pushing us further apart, and all as we hurtle towards a climate apocalypse of our own making.
Now, more than ever, our shrivelled souls need saving. We need artists to create because quite simply we require it of them, not because it pays. Listen to Daniel Bateman, the creative force behind New York duo Frog, who states: “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.”
So, here we are, a writer who couldn’t make it pay, writing about a label that couldn’t make it pay, putting out an album by a band that couldn’t really make it pay; a passion-project triumvirate doing what they can.
Grog is Frog’s fourth full-length album and the follow-up to 2019’s excellent Count Bateman. Let’s begin with the album’s title because it just so happens to be a perfect encapsulation of Frog the band.
For starters, grog is intoxicating just like listening to Frog’s music: switching between styles and tempos, presenting an endless flow of vivid imagery and lyrical wordplay, it’s disorientating and addictive and leaves you a little unsteady on your feet.
Next, let’s take the word grog: it originates from Old Grog, the nickname of eighteenth-century British admiral Edward Vernon, in reference to his grogram cloak [grogram is a scratchy blend of silk and wool, in case you were wondering]. Vernon was the man responsible for diluting sailors’ rum to avoid extreme drunkenness on the high seas. It’s something Dan Bateman stumbled across while playing the video game The Secret of Monkey Island.
What we have here is something familiar, a word, but with layers of meaning behind it, something weird and wonderful and open to various experiences and interpretations – welcome to the modus operandi of every Frog song. Grog’s strange shape-shifting tales are grounded in reality, rendered in precise detail, yet hinting at something strange, otherworldly and profound.
Finally, frog and grog is a simple rhyme – not obvious, but easy. Daniel Bateman is the master of these kinds of rhymes, with a special ability to fire them out in quick succession to build vignettes that are strikingly original, off-centre and memorable. Grog is chock full of them:
‘Chicken Pot Pie | Hand on her thigh’
‘Going to take the bassline out to lunch | Going to make a bowl of Captain Crunch.’
Grog features all the big hooks, infectious melodies, poetic lyrics and unique vocals you’d expect from a Frog record. In fact, it brings together stylistic tropes from each of their previous releases – there are elements of Count Bateman’s radio-friendly 1970s rock; the frenzied technicolour alt-country of Kind of Blah, the wistful understated beauty and craft of Whatever We Probably Already Had It. There are even a few new elements in the mix, along with its general sense of encroaching darkness.
We find piano extending and elevating Goes w/o Saying and, later, taking centre stage on the gently anthemic So Twisted Fate.
An altogether funkier Frog is revealed on Black on Black on Black with shades of Ian Dury in his prime. DOOM SONG is the most stark departure though, a discordant heavy jam that sets up a nice contrast with the delightful near-perfect pop of Maybelline which is catchy as hell and showcases Bateman’s trademark falsetto to full effect.
Elsewhere, we are treated to classic Frog on the understated and perfectly formed Americana of Ur Still Mine, and the countrified stomp of New Ro that is a deft exploration of relationships, with a typically strong sense of place, in this instance: “where the girls they put out in a car and the pizza guys know where you are”.
Grog twists and turns, builds and breaks, at times optimistic, other times bleak, it hits emotionally and cerebrally. Ultimately, it’s another fantastic Frog album, deserving of success, critical and financial, and other more important metrics. I, for one, am delighted it exists. Thanks to Daniel and his brother Steve for making it happen, for all those involved in its release and for all the sacrifices and toiling. Grog is a labour of love and born out of love, and, yes, it’s set in Hades. It’s a reminder that creativity and love can still shine a light, even in these dark dark days.
You can read my review of Count Bateman here on the Spoonerster Spouts or head to Gold Flake Paint for my take on Kind of Blah.
Check out Audio Antihero and Frog’s bandcamp – buy all the albums you can.
