Iceage
New Brigade
(Abeano/Remote Control)
Call it art-punk, post-punk or even post-hardcore, but the first album by young Copenhagen, Denmark quartet Iceage – all 18 or 19 years old – is one fiery riot. Combining the chanted mosh-pit thrash of 7 Seconds with the dead-eyed judder of Joy Division, the English-singing band drill through 12 songs in 24 minutes. But despite the touchstone of old-school punk, there’s so much more going on here, including a careening rhythmic drive, weird goth-y fog and timeless outsider cool.
Following the almost industrial preamble of the brief ‘Intro’, ‘White Rune’ is our first proper run-in with Iceage. It opens with a similar throb before running the gamut from Ian Curtis zombie-walking to Gang of Four sneer; from tense post-punk to fuzzy garage. The garage thing re-emerges with a great Kinks-ish hook smuggled near the end of the title track, while other songs seem to fleetingly encounter the ghost of anthems past: the refrain of ‘Remember’ (“And I keep myself within”) recalls Joy Division’s ‘Digital’ (“I feel it closing in”), while ‘Eyes’ summons Wire’s ‘12XU’ and ‘Total Drench’ threatens to veer into The Cure’s ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ for a few seconds.
Iceage - 'Total Drench'
But, befitting an once-obscure band that’s been championed by Pitchfork and The New Yorker alike, Iceage is part of the very continuum from which it cherry-picks. From the chameleonic guitars and damaged rhythm section to the subterranean and effects-drenched vocals of Elias Bender Ronnenfelt, this is special, unpredictable stuff. These guys nail everything they attempt: grotty post-punk (‘Never Return’), the head rush of hardcore (the 75-second ‘Count Me In’) and even dance-punk (the single-worthy ‘Broken Bone’) and thrumming pop-punk (closer ‘You’re Blessed’).
Iceage - 'Broken Bone'
As with Wire’s seminal Pink Flag three decades earlier, New Brigade gains strength from its short songs. Its frantic, rough-and-tumble anthems bleed into a cumulative smear of texture, energy and melody. It’s a record that makes you want to dance around the room one minute and throw furniture through the window the next.
Doug Wallen