Iceage - New Brigade

Danish foursome Iceage have been variously described as ‘visceral’, ‘dissonant’ and, alarmingly, ‘the next big thing’. Having such a stream of journo cliches heaped upon a band so young and so anaemic looking is never a good start for a career in the business of rock n’ roll, but their debut release, ‘New Brigade’, is a skinny, spiky, sulky take on no wave and could be a signpost of greater things to come (ahem).

Clocking in at a mere 24 minutes, ‘New Brigade’ is crammed with indecipherable lyrics, distorted bass lines and bursts of noise-driven melody. So far, so Jesus & Mary Chain you may say. But Ice Age thankfully don’t appear to adhere to some vacuous notion of poseur nihilism; if anything, the songs are far too short to sustain anything other than frantic, youthful shards of energy. Opener ‘White Rune’ sounds like an incoherent chain gang on a rollercoaster and is all the better for it. ‘Remember’ gallops allong with a rollicking tom tom drive, always sounding as if it is about to take off somehow but never managing it. The entire album is a celebration of guitar-led rackets, each instrument clamouring to be heard over the other. In fact, there is something unabashedly joyous about the album, a celebration rather than annhilation.

If the songs do tend to blur into one another, it may be due to a derivative punk sound, but perhaps these Danish upstarts simply know their limits and are content not to expand beyond them just yet. ‘New Brigade’ certainly won’t change the world but the album evinces a raw talent, and one which is invigorating to hear free from the clutches of a smothered sound or image. Of course, this isn’t going to last forever… is it?