Los Angeles' THE ICARUS LINE release AVOWED SLAVERY, sister EP to the critically acclaimed “Slave Vows” album.
Published
Old Subbacultcha
Old Subbacultcha
Agit-Art-Rockers The Icarus Line release companion piece EP to go hand in hand with the 2013 acclaimed
“Slave Vows” album… Showing new sides to their class and invention.
It’ s no secret that The Icarus Line are a band I am somewhat keen on, indeed, so vocal was I about the last album
“Slave Vows” that I would stop strangers in the street and make them listen to the dark, ambiguous, barely concealed anger of the songs trying to prompt spontaneous acts of anti-establishment ardor. So it is that the news a companion EP was being released that would follow on in the same vein and flesh out this bold new world that was created and inhabited upon Slavery Vows release that I was Damn near apoplectic with joy and my Editor stated “
he’s a bit of a fanboy” unsure whether to give me the job of reviewing – well, duh... and I nearly broke his hands to get the record.
AVOWED SLAVERY is a five track EP that takes a leap from the Slavery Vows albums final moments and builds a new layer of intrigue and scope and highlights again the bands utter disregard for convention and sheer exuberant invention. “
Leaches and Seeds” is a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds emulating art-punk masterpiece – front-man and brains behind the band Joey Cardomone channels the Australian Gothfather in creative and anxiety inducing ways, there is a panic, a danger and a real sense of euphoric chaos in his delivery, his lyrics and his songs. “
The Father/The Priest” is a grandiose and discordant lo-fi slab of feedback, guttural screaming and yelping and psychedelic guitar whig-outs that reminds me of Mars Volta at their most disjointed, Jimi Hendrix moments before he set fire to that guitar and the Heroin Chic of Bowie at his most nihilistic. Avowed Slavery is, in many ways, less a companion piece as a bridge between what was – in my opinion –
THE indispensable IL record and what is surely going to be (on this evidence) something unholy epic when new Longplayer opus is finally released. The Icarus Line are a band who take a hearty look at their influences and channel and filter the feeling of muted emotional intensity into something wholly unique and wholly devastating. Songs on Avowed Slavery build and twist and permutate into living organic entities that dispel any involvement of being borne from a musician and instead stake claims as being sentient, breathing organisms in their own right. Music here is jagged, fraught with dangers and dizzy sardonic cool and venom hides in every note… It is at times both a frighteningly difficult listen and at the same time emotionally wrenching making the skin crawl and the hair on your arms stand up, emotion and atmosphere mixing into a solid and pervasive force. Yes I am a Fanboy. I cannot help it. This music makes me feel the same way Iggy and The Stooges screaming SEARCH AND DESTROY made me feel when I first heard it, it is the same deadly drug that MURDER BALLADS was on first listen, it is REAL GONE by Tom Waits in morphine form, mainlined straight to my heart and soul… it is everything I want from music and more… Five tracks of utter incredulity and intense noisy wonder. It’s just so good… and as a precursor to what is to come? Well – I wait with baited breath, like Oliver Twist holding out his supper bowl…
“Please, Sir, could I have some more?” 9/10
http://theicarusline.com
READ THE "SLAVE VOWS' REVIEW HERE