Iceage
Plowing Into The Field Of Love (Matador)The third album from this youthful Danish quartet trades in the skeletal post-punk of 2011’s celebrated New Brigade for scorched-earth spaghetti gothic. Allusions to the Birthday Party abound as Iceage thunders across the high desert of the soul, and you can almost smell the toxic fragrance of cheap liquor and stale cigarettes on Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s tortured, breathy vocal as he slurs his way through half-cocked entreaties that would make Stanley Kowalski take pause. Iceage flirts with pitched perfection on “The Lord’s Favorite,” a raucous cowpoke ramble that feigns gospel fealty against a backdrop of sun-cracked debauchery. The mood turns sour as “Glassy Eyed, Dormant and Veiled” swells and recedes with the theatrical fury of spurned retribution. “Cimmerian Shade” goes one better by pitting a jagged guitar warble against Rønnenfelt’s retching noises. All of which begs the question: How do these early twentysomethings pull forth the frayed, beleaguered mien of a middle-aged cabaret wash-up? (4:05pm, Black stage; FFF Nites: Fri., 12:30am, Holy Mountain inside)
This article appears in November 7 • 2014.
