Pining For The Harshest Of Blackouts

Remember No Anchor? The brutalist Brisbane trio who reckon they aren't together much anymore? Donnie Miller records music and is in Sonic Masala-affiliated shoegaze band Roku Music; Alex Gillies cuts wood and is in metal throwbacks Greig; and Ian Rogers elocutes about music and plays in Shaking Hell. But Ian isn't done with flaying his vocal chords or our eardrums, as new side project Black Pines (joined by Rational Academy alum and the Pale Earth duke himself, Ben Thompson) attests. In the most obvious move yet from excellent outre outsider label Wood & Wire will take any risk, they have put out Harsh Out, six tracks of psych - but not as you know it. The duo want to scrape the underbelly of the 60s psychedelic dream with rusty knives, before diving straight in and letting the intestinal truth shower down. With comparisons of Bardo Pond, Boris, Swans and Unsane (circa 89-92) bandied about, you know that this is atonal obliteration of the most delicious kind. The red-eyed tint of a man driven insane by demons both without and within; swastikas etched through the skin, through sinew, through bone; nightmares real in Giallo Technicolour, an ecstatic mess, before spiralling into a pastiche of Korine-helmed dirt and Noe-driven madness. All done without preamble, without compromise, without apology. If you thought The Golden Bridge saw an upswing in Ian's temperament, with tongue embedded in cheek, then Black Pines is here to irradiate those memories beyond reproach.

As always, Wood & Wire are offering Harsh Out as a free download here. Let's hope there is some sort of physical release of this soon, yeah?

Iceage Proves You Are Nothing

 

Young Danish punks Iceage took the world by storm with their nihilistic (I have been using that word a lot recently – I'm definitely in that mode right now) debut record New Brigade. Picked up by globetrotting tastemakers, the quartet found themselves spending much of 2012 playing the US and Europe, cracking out stifling, antagonistic 15 to 20 minute sets, looking bored of the types of crowd they were attracting, barely allowing an emotion to crest the surface over derision. If anything, this further amplified their relevance. I overheard a few people at Barden’s in Dalston in December talking about them, remarking that they had seen them twice and hadn’t lightened up. I almost spat out my beer (but didn’t – that would be a waste). Why like something if you want it to change? There are many arguments to be had over that question alone, but posit this – Iceage have hit a chord because of their disparity, their atonal apathy that dissolves into abject anarchy at the flick of a shorting switch. They are mirroring many of the abject horrors of the disenfranchised, which is what punk rock is supposed to embody anyway.

Then last year they signed up to Matador, and breaths were collectively held. Is this the “lightening up” that those “fans” so desperately wanted? Will this be a selling out? Or will this be an emancipation, a freeing moment for the band to truly expand on the feelings of isolation and simmering aggression that fuelled their creative wellspring?

The result is You’re Nothing – and it has somehow done it all. The selling out part is meant in the most literal sense – they have harnessed themselves to a label that has past and present experience in nurturing important and innovative punk and hardcore (Mission of Burma, Unsane, Fucked Up). Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s still plays like a modern-day Ian Curtis embalmed in spit, venom and (W)ire, his jagged vocals at once fierce and droll, yet his presence is more forceful, more deliberate, and this fact alone tells us how focused and distilled the Iceage medium has become. Thus many of these tracks are still as breakneck, abrasive and unrelenting as is to be expected, yet there is a channelling of forces in tracks like the closing title track and ‘Burning Hand’ that puts you inside the songs, rather than just riding the wave of their aggression. The music is still hovering on a knife edge, threatening to implode under its own wanton destruction – yet unlike New Brigade, you never really believe it will. Iceage are still a bunch of boys headbutting the walls of their perceived oppressions, yet with You’re Nothing, they are more likely to come out on top. Not that they give a shit either way – and that’s what makes it all the more viscerally appealing.

 

You’re Nothing is out soon, pre-order it here.

Iceage – Coalition
Iceage - Ecstasy

Getting Wrecked Is Unsane

I've been sitting on this one for a while, so if you are an Unsane acolyte, you know all about how awesome Wreck, their seventh and latest record in five years, really is. It's as brutal, traumatic and technically brilliant as you would expect. It's great to hear a band that in many ways crafted this style of vitriolic dirge are still getting it right some 24 years later. It's nothing new, even by Unsane, but there aren't many bands doing such explosive, furious, serrated rock like this anymore, despite the many great noise bands that fill the nooks and crannies of music's darkest corners, thus it's imperative that the NY trio keep flying their torn, blood-spattered flag in a sea of severed limbs and alienated orphans till the end of Time. And when Time ends - and indeed it will - make sure you have Chris Spencer and his merry men beside you, all the way down.


Wreck is out now on Alternative Tentacles.

Unsane - Rat
Unsane - Ghost