The Third Door,
Edinburgh
Saturday November 24th
2012
4 stars
“Can we borrow the
support bands' guitars?” asks Iceage vocalist Elias Ronnenfelt with
the sort of sleepy-eyed mix of boredom, shyness and self-belief that
doesn't expect any answer other than action. Three songs in, and the
baby-faced Danish neo-hardcore quartet's own guitars are fucked, a
mess of snapped-string fury that's the only thing that's made them
pause for breath on this fourth date of their European tour.
With a name that
recalls a song by Joy Division in their early, proto-punk Warsaw
incarnation, Iceage's 2011debut album, New Brigade, announced to the
world a primitive outburst of teenage frustration that was both a
throwback to a million spirit-of-'76 one chord wonders and an urgent
rebirth of the same crash-and-burn attitude. With New Brigade's
follow-up on Matador Records imminent, Iceage are currently between
moments, holding on to both for dear life so tightly that broken
strings and borrowed guitars are inevitable collateral damage.
Headlining a show where
first support act Birdhead sound like German electro-punk duo Deutsch
Amerikanische Freundschaft, while second on the bill Baby Strange
peak with a cover of Mink DeVille's Spanish Stroll, Iceage's sound
sits edgily in-between the two. Standing before a busy room of
equally disaffected youth alongside a few old lags, Iceage take
punk's nihilistic shtick and breathe fresh life into a series of
blink-and-you'll miss-em assaults that do away with subtlety and
sophistication for the ultimate back-to-basics deconstructed clatter.
Ronnenfelt is a
pretty-boy pin-up in denial. He leaves the stage more than once,
surging against the tide of bodies he's at risk of being lost in
before coming up for air and stepping out of reach. It's as if he
wants to be part of the throng enough to embrace it, but is too
repelled by it to commit, preferring to stand out in the crowd and
keep his distance, however ugly the view. If this recalls anything,
it's a young, strung-out and flailing Nick Cave if he'd been cast in
Glee and was fronting an unholy, Frankenstein's monster alliance of
The Birthday Party, The Cramps and The Strokes that could fall apart
any minute.
After twenty-seven
blistering, breath-taking minutes – two longer than New Brigade's
running time – it's over. Forget pork pie hatted posh boy punk
pretenders. In their eyes, at least, Iceage are for real, so catch
them while they last, before self-destruction or showbiz makes them
irrelevant. Right now, Iceage mean everything and nothing. They are
their generation, and, for the next five minutes, they will blow
everything else apart.
The List, December 2012
ends
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