Frustration could have easily played it safe releasing a record basically identical to the previous one, intense, abrasive, honest but with no risk. They could have continued to fill the venues with no complaints. They could have prepared their slow but inevitable exit. But right from the very first seconds of "Insane", a humoungous electro-punk monster that wouldn’t have been out of place on an 1988 EBM EP, you realize that things aren’t gonna go as planned. Instead of setting up a comfortable routine, Frustration recorded its fifth album as if it were the first, like a bunch of guys who’ve been playing together for 6 months, who have nothing to lose and a ferocious will to bite.
 
Of course, post-punk shenanigans is still there (martial drums, elastic bass, hit-and-run guitars), but So Cold Streams is full of a brand new energy, raucous lyrics and full-on audacity. Take a listen to "Brume" is an industrial nightmare with lyrics screamed in French. Or the poppy and intimate "Lil' White Sister" sounds surprisingly like the Smiths or Echo & The Bunnymen. Or the insane "Slave Markets" on which the band invited Jason Williamson, half of Sleaford Mods - a band that was pivotal in Frustration's new found youth.
 
That observation is perfectly summarized by the cover of the record, painted like all the previous ones by french artist Baldo, and which represents a machine tarring a road through a wheatfield. A painting made more than 15 years ago and which was originally intended to be the cover of Full Of Sorrow, Frustration's first album. For a renaissance, there could have been no better and more emblematic choice. Especially since the whole album is contained within the image: there’s space, strength, light, rage and disgust too. A desire to destroy everything. To make a clean slate. To come with something different. A little more than music. A spirit, an idea. Something that makes you look at the world with a different perspective.