Iceage – Seek Shelter
Iceage has never had a formula, a rarity for most bands
dabbling in post-punk these days. Instead, the Copenhagen group has pushed
themselves to be more adventurous on each release, stubbornly insisting on
distancing themselves from the sound that made them famous. In the process, the
band has released four critically acclaimed albums, each record better than the
one that preceded it.
Their newest album, Seek Shelter, is no outlier.
While critics will remain divided over how well it holds up to 2018’s stellar Beyondless,
it’s undeniable the band has found itself in exciting new territory. A
stylistic pivot is more than just well-earned, it’s necessary to keep Iceage
fresh. Beyondless had found the band taking their punk roots to the
farthest extreme,
making the most of their established sound but also taking it as far as it
could seemingly go. Seek Shelter, on the other hand, finds its influence
in much broader territory, the first record that sounds far removed from the
cold Danish inner cities and instead allowing singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt to filter his innate charisma into a
surprisingly convincing California swagger.
With less of the relentless energy
and brooding drama of their earlier releases, the band makes up for it in sheer
eclecticism. On past albums, Iceage had found a few excuses to incorporate
country and psych-rock into their more defined sound, but on Seek Shelter,
the band is happy to finally succumb to whatever stylistic impulse strikes
them. Throughout the album, whether it’s “Seek Shelter”’s take on operatic
Brit-pop, the spiritual “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” finding its way into
rocker “High & Hurt” or the Donovan psych-out of “Vendetta” Iceage finds
genuinely exciting methods of exercising their inspiration and demonstrating
their willingness to distinguish themselves.
Seek Shelter finds its success not in the unabashed vibrancy of the
performances, as was the case on the previous Iceage albums, but in the band’s
need to experiment farther more than they ever have before. Much of this could
be due to producer Sonic Boom taking the reins away from the group, allowing
them to latch onto his Spacemen 3 influence, but mostly this is due to the band
exhausting their previous sound and on Seek Shelter, finding about nine
new ones.
~9.0
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