Frontal Boundary interview: ‘New School Melodic Dark-Electro’
Frontal Boundary
The American Electro project Frontal Boundary was founded several years ago, but due to the members’ involvement in other bands, the original duo gradually faded into obscurity. A few years back, the group was revived, with core members Brendin Ross and Krz Souls returning to action—this time joined by Jaysen Craves as an additional force. Last year, their debut album “Shutting Down” was released via Re:Mission. It’s a powerful, well-crafted production that will surely resonate with Dark-Electro fans—and it’s clear this is a group with tremendous potential we’ll be hearing much more from. I sat down with Brendin and Krz to ask them a few questions. (Picture credits by Pablo Salamone / Interview courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)
Q: Frontal Boundary was founded several years ago but remained quiet for a long time before making a strong return in recent years. Can you tell us more about the band’s origins and development? What initially brought you together, and is there a deeper meaning behind the band’s name?
Brendin:The band was originally formed in 2008 by me. Soon after I joined the military but continued writing music under that name. I was unable to play shows for obvious reasons. In 2010 I started releasing material. But it wasn’t until late 2011 that I was able to play out as Frontal Boundary. We had a pretty good few years of touring and festivals from 2011-2013, but it was around that time that I joined BILE as the synth player.
So, long story short, joining and playing with bands that were already more established like Bile, Ego Likeness, Dawn Of Ashes etc. took more priority over Frontal Boundary -that’s where the hiatus came into play.
Krz, Jaysen and I have been friends for many years (Jaysen was the last live keyboardist the band had before going on hiatus.) So, in 2020 I talked to Krz about bringing Frontal Boundary back as a studio-only act -with both him and I writing and him doing vocals while I step away from vocal duty. We did that and released “The Fall” which we sort of released, posted about it a few times and never thought about it again. Fast forward to 2023 -Krz and I are both playing in Inva//Id and going to New Orleans to play Dark City fest. Jaysen calls me and says – hey, we had a band drop out of the festival (with 3 days before the show) what do you think about doing a Frontal Boundary show, for old times’ sake. (Now there are a few caveats here -Krz had never been a frontman, and it was never our intention for him to have to do any of this live. Frontal Boundary hadn’t played in 9 years.) So, I called Krz and asked him if he wanted to do a Frontal Boundary show at the festivals. He said Yes, after a little encouragement.
I scrambled to find backing tracks for a set, get all the song information to pass on to Jaysen -we showed up in New Orleans two days before the festival and rehearsed twice and played a show. After we got off stage, Krz looked at me backstage and said -man that felt great, and both of us, with smiles, said we should keep doing this. We added Jaysen to the band full time as a creative input and the rest is history as they say.
Q: You have a lot of experience with other musical projects. What sets Frontal Boundary apart from your previous work? What are your key influences and musical references?
Krz:We love all the projects we are a part of and will continue to support and play in those! But I think what makes Frontal Boundary special to us, is that we put more of our creative output into it. It feels good to get an idea and just go with it… sometimes you love the outcome and sometimes you hate it! Either way it just feels good. What is so fun about us is that we are all quite different when it comes to influences and references. I mean anything from Spice Girls to Skinny Puppy.
Q: “Shutting Down” is your official debut album following a series of EPs. How did this album come together, and what makes an album special compared to an EP? In a time dominated by streaming, do you believe albums still have a meaningful place in music?
Krz:Streaming is a HUGE thing right now and it is smart to constantly push new material on a more frequent basis, however I feel that there is always room for those collections to be on an album! Also… we always try to push EPs but sometimes we just keep making songs and get excited! Hahaha
Q: Can you give us insight into your creative process? Who handles what aspects of music, and is there someone who takes on a leadership role when important decisions need to be made?
Brendin:It honestly varies quite a bit. It’s usually either I or Krz starting a track. I do all the production on the songs, some writing along with Krz and Jaysen. I mix, then we tweak the mix together to get the song how we want it to sound. Then I do the mastering. Each song is different. There isn’t a set way that we do things, I don’t think. We just go with what the song feels like it calls for.
Q: There seems to be a conceptual theme behind “Shutting Down”, exploring music’s ability to regulate emotions and experiences. Can you elaborate on this idea?
Krz:“Shutting Down” was a collection of emotions and the turmoil that holds them together or tears them apart. It is about being a human and dealing with all those emotions from start to finish. About falling apart and trying to piece it back together again.
Q: We haven’t touched much on the style and sound of Frontal Boundary. How would you describe it from your own perspective? In today’s music world, how important—or unimportant—is it to fit within a specific genre?
Brendin:I always say we’re doing a new school melodic Dark-Electro. I honestly don’t know how to explain what it is. It’s not Aggrotech, and it’s not Synth/Future-Pop. But there are a lot of those elements in it. We just write, and this is what comes out. We don’t really try to fit into a box. On “Shutting Down” we have a track called “Runaway”, and that was originally a 90’s Trance track I wrote. We just kind of took that and added some of our usual Frontal Boundary stuff to it, and it got on the album.
I don’t know if it’s TOO important to fit into a specific genre. Maybe in the late 90’s, early 2000’s. But I don’t feel like that is the case nowadays. Even from the very beginning, I don’t think Frontal Boundary really checked all the boxes of any specific genre. So maybe that’s a good thing? I don’t know. It’s hard to tell from the inside looking out.
Q: What’s next for Frontal Boundary this year, and how do you envision the future of the band?
Brendin:For 2025, we have quite a lot going on. We have a bunch of new material on the way -a lot of it is already done. We have some great shows lined up and festival gigs in Europe. We released the first single off our next album on March 28th called “Hollow” along with a video we shot for the song. This is a collaboration track we did with Unter Null. That sort of happened by accident, and it turned out to be a banger. That single has some fantastic remixes on it by Leæther Strip, Rotersand, Gencab, Mortal Realm, Antibody, and Manufactura. Then we will have a follow up single after that and possibly a third. Then we will release the album sometime mid to late summer. We also will have a remix album that we are putting out with all the remixes we’ve had done for the last two albums -including a bunch of unreleased remixes we have. So, we have a lot going on and we don’t plan on stopping!
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