Album Review: Beyondless, Iceage

Iggy Pop once proclaimed Iceage to be the only current punk band “that sounds really dangerous.” The Danish gore revivalists – fronted by the splendid abstract cynicism of Elias Bender Rønnenfelt – have continued to reinvent themselves since their swashbuckling debut, New Brigade, in 2011.

Beyondless sees the group embark on a daring new adventure of morose, intoxicating glamour, complete with swelling horns and lush string arrangements – the guttural wailings of a jukebox in purgatory.

Rønnenfelt has continued to flourish as a writer; he wields his pen opaquely, like a kind of vampiric Romanticist. On varying occasions, he speaks wistfully of STDs on his tongue; compares himself to a rat; and juxtaposes his conscious mind with that of a blow-up doll. Quite simply, he relishes in the depths of human squalor.

A vocalist of many faces, Rønnenfelt floats between outright listlessness, spirited drunkenness and gorgeous lucidity. At times, he’s a swaggering balladeer (‘Plead The Fifth’), while on more coiled tracks, he shines as a gutsy punk exhibitionist.

The surprising albeit mesmerising collaboration with Sky Ferreira, ‘Pain Killer’, is a seedy and unapologetically poppy cut with swooshing horns. Elsewhere, the patient building of guttural energy in ‘Catch It’ mirrors the song’s exploration of the preciousness of time (“All these stagnant words which I confide/ Perish in the night,” Rønnenfelt groans, sounding as dejected as ever).

Iceage may well be the most dangerous punk band in music today. But, even more interestingly, they are among the most innovative. They seem armoured with enough guts, and emotional expansiveness, to withstand and blossom past the inertia which has ruptured guitar-rock.

Rating: 9/10