Music - Part 74 - Ice, Sea Dead People

Ice, Sea, Dead People – If It’s Broken Break It More (Lost Toy Records)

CD/DL

Out Now

Probably one of the best band names I’ve heard for a long time belongs to this London based quartet.  Great album title too.

Recorded live (and it feels like it), and, on tape with no overdubs, Ice Sea Dead People have created an album with real balls.  Loud, brash and screaming with power, it’s not one for a Sunday morning hangover.  Subtly demanding to be filed away with the likes of Wire, Fugazi and Blood Brothers, ‘If It’s Broken Break It More’ gives you less than thirty minutes of explosiveness over ten potentially ear-bleeding tracks.

You know where you’re going with opener ‘Diamond Swords’.  Fast paced, young voices and pounding bass with a frenetic drum accompanied by chunking guitar and the occasional scream and shout.  This lot remind you of the disillusioned, struggling but surviving under a Tory government dictatorship thirty-five years ago, nowhere to go, no hope, no future – sound familiar?

Whether it be the high pitched screech or wild drums of the brilliant ‘Ultra Silence’ with its catchy ‘Cha Cha Cha’ chorus, or, ‘Styes In My Eyes’ with its weird guitar entrance slowly burying itself under a gigantic bed of noise, these boys know how perform. 

Title track, ‘If It’s Broken Break It More’ begins with pure Mark E Smith, slowing moving away into classic punk rock.  ‘I Found A Way’ is too long and becomes slightly annoying (maybe purposely?), but, with tracks like ‘You Could Have Been A Model’ and ‘Pro Wife’ there are melodies fighting to get out and expose themselves next to the great chorus lines.

It’s all good stuff and what music is all about – don’t just listen to it, feel it.  Feel it enter every vein and sinew of your body, if it does, it’s magical.  Closing with the mental chant repetition of ‘We Don’t Want To Give You That’ is the end of a rather fine album. 

If you take one risk with any album, then make it this one.  This is punk rock for 2013.

7.5/10

Published on Louder Than  War 27/04/13 - http://louderthanwar.com/ice-sea-dead-people-if-its-broken-break-it-more-album-review/