The Ice Cream

Let’s be clear: under no circumstances should an album like The Ice Cream work. It crams a headspinning 18 songs into 35.8 of our earth minutes; most of it is uncomfortable on the ear; few of the lyrics are audible; front man Patrick Hannah can sing, but it sounds like he can’t, and there’s always an utterly distracting hoot or honk sounding off in the distance.
Yet, it is bizarrely, one of the most emotive albums I’ve heard in a long time, conjuring an unexpected trinity of joy, rage and uneasiness in equal measures.
Take for example the primitive ‘I Would Liken You To Oceans’, which begins with the impossibly sweet croak of “I would liken you to oceans/ Because I like you just like that”. Two minutes later, we’re in full-on guitar-busting Eat My Flesh territory. In the same vein, a tune called ‘Crave The Flesh’ bears the cheery refrain “You are the sunshine of my life”, and closer ‘Big Pub Crawl’ is one of the most chilled-out moments on the whole LP.
As perplexing as the symphony of sounds (between them, the Dublin fivesome play the harmonica, the xylophone and the mandolin, as well as some conventional instruments thrown in for good measure) is GPO’s mammoth range of influences. I plucked out Faust, The Moldy Peaches, Scissor Sisters, Simon and Garfunkel and Passion Pit to start, but after a while it seemed pointless trying to intuit method in this madness.
I was far better off sitting back and conjuring up some kinky scenario for each two-minute trip. ‘My Lungs’, for example, would do very nicely for catching some waves in a 1960s Hawaiian teen romp; ‘Tickly Toes’ will see you comfortably through to the next level of the Sega Game Gear adventure of your life and ‘Using The Body’ will work wonders as the campaign song for your very twisted political party.
The most endearing thing is that Grand Pocket Orchestra clearly couldn’t give a flying fuck about looking like a bunch of 8-bit weirdos. They’ve made a truly Devil May Care album – a feat in itself these days – which manages to be gritty and twee at the same time. The Ice Cream is a bewildering, experimental, vicious little gem of a record, full of alternative pop bounce. It works.
Key Track: ‘I Would Liken You To Oceans’