I first became aware of Ice, Sea, Dead People when my buddies from United Fruit went on a UK tour with them last year. First thought I had was regarding the name, especially since I shortly after becoming aware of this band watched another Film 4 re-run of The Sixth Sense, and somehow I could only hear the little boy character Cole Sear say “I see dead people” as “Ice sea dead people” (somehow a Sean Connery accent slipped in here as well, yes I know, don’t ask me why). After hearing a couple of the United Fruit lads rave about them I decided to check them out and this resulted in me listening to the impressive debut album Teeth Union. Now they are about to release that “difficult second album”, which they called If It’s Broken Break it More.
I quite like to describe their sound as “jumpy alternative noise rock/punk”, although the description they use on their Facebook page as “Post-punk/New-wave/Noise-rock/Post-hyphen-hyphen-hyphenism/Fuck” is quite a nice one too, especially for the people who like to post-something every genre these days.
If It’s Broken Break it More is a very good album following the sound set on Teeth Union nicely, with mathy rhythms, noisy riffing guitar bits, shouty vocals and overall delivering 10 solidly written poppy punk tracks. They write the kind of tunes which initially make you tap your feet, then you’ll start nodding your head and eventually you’ll find yourself jumping and dancing around your living room. It is good stuff and unfortunately I’ve never seen these guys live, but I can only imagine the high levels of energy and dynamics these guys would deliver on stage.
The album was recorded live without any click tracks or overdubs and thereby catches a lot of said energy and dynamics, which is great. I do however have a minor criticism regarding the final production. After listening back-to-back to Teeth Union and If It’s Broken Break it More, I found myself a bit disappointed in the lack of bass on this latest album compared to the first album. But this is only a minor critical point.
As already said, If It’s Broken Break it More has 10 solidly good songs, but two tracks are really standing out for me, which are ‘You Could Be A Model’ and ‘If It’s Broken’. The former for the brilliantly sounding guitar tone which makes it a great catchy melodic punk track and the latter for sounding like one of my all-time favourite noise heroes Sonic Youth. Also the distorted bass finally makes a very welcome appearance in the front of the mix in this track.
If you like noise-rock, jumpy rhythms and post-hyphen-hyphen-hyphenism, I seriously recommend you to get yourself a copy of If It’s Broken Break it More, which will be released on April 22nd on Lost Toy Records. And while you’re at it, get yourself a copy of their debut album as well.
Support the music you love.
