Los Angeles quintet The Icarus Line are not your average ‘The’ band. Renowned for their uncompromising and frenetic brand of rock, the group came to international attention thanks to their 2001 debut LP Mono. A two year on the road stint with the likes of Primal Scream, Queens Of The Stoneage and A Perfect Circle ensued, at the end of which they promptly fired their manager and jumped ship to major label V2, before heading back into the studio to self-produce their sophomore release.
Recorded in LA and London and mixed by Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) Penance Soiree sees The Icarus Line cultivate a new breed of ferocious, psychedelic punk. It’s the filthy, degenerate, snotty, younger brother of all things distorted and/or epic, with audible influences ranging from the Sex Pistols (see the furious ‘Spit On It’) and Manc guitar pop on quieter-moment ‘Spike Island’, to disjointed, sneering, punk-Nirvana on the incredible opener ‘Up Against The Wall’.
Such obvious musical lineage may look a bit clichéd in print, but the sound is anything but, with influences put to constructive, creative use while still managing to avoid sounding like cheap imitations of the real thing. This is rock to boil blood to: serrated, vicious, discordant, psychotic, manic music that, in its deranged-ness, I can’t help but love.