Iceage thaw out Elektrowerkz

Iceage’s second album You’re Nothing is getting critics frothing at the mouth, and for good reason. It keeps the raw, visceral vitality of their debut album, New Brigade, and marries it to a more intricate post-punk undercurrent. In fact, whisper it, new track ‘Morals’ seems to be an attempt at a pop song. The band have managed to ride the initial wave of hype and are now proving themselves to be a thrilling live proposition.

Although Electrowerkz, located a few minutes from Angel tube station, looks like a small dive venue from the outside, once you get inside it turns out to be a somewhat cavernous space, stretching back for miles. And Iceage manage to fill it tonight; as close to a sell-out that you are every likely to see. It takes me an absolute age to scramble through the bodies to buy myself a Red Stripe (oh how stereotypical). Electrowerkz used to be a metal factory and it makes an intriguing, if not bewildering, venue. Iceage arrive on stage late, rude and raucous, a manner most befitting the scary yoof of today, or so the Daily Mail would have you believe. Underneath the howls of new single ‘Ecstasy’ and old favourite ‘Collapse’, however, lies an intelligent band who share a certain something with Joy Division. Some of the standout tracks from the new album are ‘Coalition’ and ‘Wounded Hearts’ and they rouse the moshpit into action. The hardcore fans at the front go wild for ‘White Rune’ and ‘Remember’ but ‘You’re Nothing’ proves to be an unexpected high point.

Half of the time you cannot tell what lead singer, Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, is singing but that is not the point of the night. It is the energy and viciousness of the set which comes through; Elias spent more time swinging from overhead pipes, thrashing in the crowd and screaming at the front row then standing by the microphone.

You cannot write a review nowadays about Iceage without mentioning the controversy which they have courted; the fascist ideology employed and the fact that they sold branded switchblades at recent shows. The cynic inside me says that is a gimmick used to startle the mainstream media into giving them column inches, and boy oh boy is it successful. Let us not forget that this is a band who offered fans the chance to buy locks of their hair so they know how to get attention.

After tonight it is clear that the attention, however, should be firmly focussed on the epic gothic-tinged hardcore bursts that Iceage are so good at. The energy which they played with shook the foundations of Electrowkerkz and left me feeling a very very old twenty two year old indeed. I cannot keep up with the youth of today! But it is fun to try.