Destructive, defiant, rancid—these are the kind of words Ben Frost tosses around to describe what he’s going for on his new release, A U R O R A (Mute Records). This record is not meant to be anything like a relaxing experience. It’s meant to scare you, perhaps. Certainly it’s meant to cause uneasiness, and maybe a bit of desultory anger. Frost’s fist-to-the-teeth mission fades into view with “Flex,” a lumpy bed of eerie atmospherics, until a subterranean bass pushes its way in and the track fills with static and dissonance. That’s just to set the mood before the over-the-top artificiality of “Nolan” takes over. Synths blaze like the glare of an over-bearing sun on a winter’s day, burning your eyes while the rest of you shivers. The dull razor–sharp melody lines are supported and almost toppled by a distorted beat. It sounds, quite literally, like the drum machine is on the verge of collapse, and someone’s turned the output up way too high.

Those more brutally physical tracks (a list that also includes “Secant,” “Diphenyl Oxatate,” and “Venter”) are surrounded by the kind of ambient decay that Tim Hecker does so well (often with an assist from Mr. Frost). Hecker eases up sometimes, though, leaving you space to breathe between all the forceful moments . Here, Frost wants you to either drown or run screaming from the room. If you do make it to the end, you’ll get to/have to endure “A Single Point of Blinding Light,” a sonic montage that references the previous eight tracks on the record and nods to classic industrial sounds. This composition is explicitly built on a dance beat and would only be out of place on the 20-year-old soundtrack album for The Crow because it’s so damn mean. It bends over backwards into a different key halfway through, and before it can provide the relief of a cathartic climax, simply degrades into digital fuzz.

Mission accomplished, Mr. Frost. I feel beat-down, crushed, and frustrated. I’m begging to catch my breath. You and your well-chosen collaborators (from similarly punishing bands Liturgy and Swans) have me waving the white flag and wondering where I left that can of mace. Certainly a gang of marauders can’t be far behind in this wasteland of crumbling, computerized facades. If I make it home alive, will we ever dance again?