The young Dannish quartet have ironed out enough of sloppy garage punk edges that irked me on the new album. You can now make out the notes and chords they are playing rather than just the collision of rusty strings being banged on. The vocals also show much improvement tuneful enough with out compromising attitude. Where the first album was more attitude over substance. It opens with what I think is the albums best song and the only moment where the singer finds his actual singing voice. Not only is it the albums best song but one of the best new songs I've heard this week, when if you take into consideration how much new music I listen to very week is saying something. They cover a lot of ground in under three minutes and I do wish. PRefo this vibe was touched on in the rest of the album as their is a reckless sense of adventure .
"Coalition" is back to business punk and prettymuchloke what the first album dished out with better production on the guitar which still have the garage grim on them but the single note line sound more like Hisker Du to me. "Burning Hand" takes on more of a gallop almost like the riff to Holy Diver if it was dragged throught befitted of Europe and thrown up on , i like it better than the previous song, the noisy quality to what they do has taken on a ore sonic ambiance md in some ways it's even so ice Ike Sonic Youth and in other it's white noise that propels it in more of a post- punk sense.
"In Haze" has lee of a rock n roll feel , particularly in the interplay between guitar which not unlike Ceremony kinda hails back to a band like Wire or Televisio, the vocals are raw and ravaged. H discontent yet hold the melody of a pub song. the simp of the bass juxtaposes against the piano of of "Morals" and the gasping desperation of their singer mumbling towards a melody he can't grasp until the song takes off. It feels pretty sincere , they aren't faking the punk any step of the way nor are they setting of to be anyone but themselves.
Bass begins to hold everything together like duct tape in the ghetto. "Everything drifts" makes up for in heart what it lacks in melodic smarts, the vocals are still spat out with self contempt the guitar parts hum out of the ruckus with more me.oy than you might expect, their assault is simplistically but well placed and this album grows on me the more I listen. "Wounded Hearts" is similar in tone to the previous track as the. Ass anchors every thing for the guitars to drunkenly dance around and the singer to blurt out his coma tie insecurities.During this back end of the album we do get a lot more of the same vibe of almost cockney swagger.
The beginning barrage of " It Might Hit first" has a metal pound to it but it relaxes back into a punkier slouch the song is only a minute and a half so a minimal time frame to really establish much and most of the metal seems to be in the drums. The closing song default back into a sloppier simplistic punk ditty, it's another one that clocks Ina t two minutes so pretty much to the point and the more rudimentary style of punk that has always been to short on shred and dynamic for my tastes, but if you are into that sort of thing they execute it well for what it is and by the next album it would seem at their current rate of progress the will have grown out of the need for that sort of thing. It goes back into the old when a punk band learns how to play their instruments they become metal. Though in their cas I could see them going into Joy Division territory as eighties goth is the new metal.
I this this album as astep in the right direction for Iceage and a big improvement in their sound from their debut, iLife most things in the universe it's assets are the flip sides of its short coming and sometimes it's youthful ness is a little shortsighted, namely their default being sloppy punk rock, when they have some really intresting things to say so I'll give this one an 8 and leave it with room to grow on me fans of punk might round it up a point as they are very genuine at what they do and put their gray hearts into it.
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