Iceage<\/a> has gone from Nihilistic hardcore teenagers led by a singer with a drinking problem to textured and nuanced post-pop-noir led by a functioning alcoholic young adult. The difference is as dramatic as the band itself; Elias Bender R\u00f8nnenfelt previously stumbled around as if he was trying to stand up on a carnival ride, his voice wavering into and away from the mic he forgot was there most of the time a la Darby Crash in the first Decline of Western Civilization<\/i> movie. Nowadays he writes thoughtful lyrics that are worth paying attention to, so he pays attention to them. Lucky us. This is the fourth time I have seen Iceage since 2013, and three of those shows, including this one, were in the spartan basement of the First Unitarian Church. Elias spent the show alternating between jumping into the crowd and hanging on the ceiling of the unfinished space while I held the seething, sweaty crowd away from guitarist Johan Surrballe Wieth\u2019s pedal board.<\/p>\nA violinist who also played keyboards might not have fit\u2013literally, since it was after all a basement\u2013but also with the much more primitive sound the band had only a few years ago. He seemed indispensable now, though, as Iceage ran through its new album, Beyondless<\/i>, nearly in its entirety. His violin screeched alongside \u201cHurrah,\u201d the set-opener, cutting through the dance-punk rhythm like a stagediver through a parting sea of arms to the floor >He augmented the distorted guitars in the same manner that the natural fizz of sax does, and he slammed his keyboard along with \u201cThe Day the Music Dies\u201d creating a staccato bleat like Iggy Pop\u2019s \u201cThe Passenger\u201d gone blues-infused cowpunk.\u2028\u2028In the past Iceage would practically abandon older releases and concentrate on whatever their most recent album was. They seem to be relenting in their still-not-old age, even retrofitting You\u2019re Nothing\u2019s<\/i> \u201cEcstasy\u201d with hissing fiddle and dragging a bouncing, rambling \u201cWhite Rune\u201d from the 2010 New Brigade<\/i> debut out of the mothballs.<\/p>\n
Although Elias was on his best behavior, and his bandmates continued their tradition of scarcely even acknowledging that there was an audience, there was still spontaneity at the set\u2019s conclusion with what was almost certainly an unplanned encore. The house lights went up and the band started to disengage but the Philadelphia crowd made just enough noise to convince them to strap back in.\u2028\u2028They played \u201cBroken Hours.\u201d The slow-burning, smoky, brooding tune appears as a Beyondless<\/i> bonus track in Japan, but it dates back to the band\u2019s early days and they don\u2019t often play it. Lucky us. \u201cI like their older stuff\u201d isn\u2019t a clich\u00e9 despite it being one of the most overused expressions in layman rock criticism because it\u2019s nearly always the correct thing to say about a band. Iceage is the rare exception that can claim each album is exponentially more impressive than the one preceding it, and they stand out even more by achieving this not by continually honing their sound, but by taking chances. But that\u2019s not the scariest thing about this band. That would be none of them are ever 27 years old yet. They could be doing this for a long time. Lucky us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the span of four albums, Iceage has gone from Nihilistic hardcore teenagers led by a singer with a drinking problem to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":6767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[757,1443],"class_list":["post-6765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whats-the-rumpus","tag-iceage","tag-whats-the-rumpus"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n