This lot and their PR made me giggle. The band hail from Sweden, their name translates as icicle and they are anti-worshippers of the sun. Apparently the three warriors in the band were selected by the winter gods and sent to Blekinge to “join the battle to once and for all erase the burning star and bring forth the Absolute Zero.” In other words they want to put the sun out, which as any watcher of Dr Who would know will mean the extinction of mankind but such dastardly plots are no doubt not without their flaws. In more humanly form the members have played in other bands such as Spawn Of Possession, Nephaitus and Unchained.
Now having read all this grim and frostbitten prose this is exactly what I expected from the band musically. Cold, icy and harsh sounds forged with determination to extinguish all light, if you will. On the whole this is not exactly what I got and I can only say there are times when this album is actually rather jolly. Perhaps the gods of winter will not be pleased with this blasphemy but that is the case. Jolly need not mean bad even within the remits of blackened metal and there is plenty to enjoy about this one.
‘Vinterriket’ hones in with a feudal cleave and a nice marauding demeanour. It immediately has me thinking of Vikings, pillaging and doing all that sort of stuff and on a raiding party through the snow. The chorus hits and it’s a good gung-ho victory chant that is obviously happy and jolly! This is all about pace and melody, everything is fast, songs last under the five min mark and come thick and furious like an avalanche burying you in their melodious grasp. Lots of parts have sweeping choral backing vocals that if anything reminds me of Tyr (especially on ‘I Väntan På Den Absoluta Nollpunkten’) and this makes it all really rather accessible but does not negate any head-banging action for the listener. I guess I am reminded a bit of fellow Swedes Lord Belial here; it’s that sort of style, which is no bad thing at all.
I could carry on making bad puns about songs such as Sno coming in a flurry but I think you have got the point by now. Despite the fact that this is a band who seem to feel the need to have a concept behind them to get attention, their music is good enough in its own right to go down a storm. Drummer Fjalar has a great clean singing voice which really puts the icing on the….. sorry and although the ultimate mission of this lot is surely doomed to failure the album itself is highly enjoyable and well worth checking out.
http://www.myspace.com/istapp
