An effortlessly cool album from the Danish punk rock band.
Iceage formed in 2008, this is their sixth album but their first in five years. Frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt has put out a solo album in that time and also made an EP with Dean Blunt.
Every few years indie reinvents itself and a new scene dominates. This sits very nicely alongside last year’s well revered Geese album, possibly hinting at the new/old direction for guitar music across the next five years. Rønnenfelt has that Cameron Winter like need to constantly create and to find inspiration in corners of guitar history slightly out of step with the here and now.
‘Ember’ kicks things off with real oomph. It reminds me of hearing The Strokes for the first time. Visceral, sharp, catchy… something you instantly feel at an almost primal level. If you didn’t know these guys were Danish you’d think they were New York hipsters. There is a long line of zeitgeist influencing bands like Geese, The Strokes and The Velvet Underground from that part of the world. ‘Match Head Girl’ keeps up the opening brilliance but twists it with a touch of another great New York band, The Rapture. It is just thrilling. ‘The Weak’ barrels into ramshackleness, much like the way Geese’s last album permanently felt like the wheels were about to fall of. We are absolutely there for the off-kilter recorder solo.
The album was recorded in a week at Silence Studio, a remote house in Sweden near the Norwegian border. They recorded their third album, Plowing Into The Field Of Love, at the same venue twelve years earlier. They were looking to recapture some of that energy, but with a greater focus than their younger selves possessed. “The songs needed to be immediate, urgent, raw and fast and they couldn’t be too long”, says Rønnenfelt. “We wanted to try to shed any unnecessary weight. Catching outlets of energy which is what excites us the most.” The raw immediacy hits you on the first listen, nothing has been overthought or overprocessed.
Whilst the immediacy hits it does have its limits. Seventy percent of this album could have been from the album of the year. They might have benefited from a second session. Keep the best of the first week, rework a few of the slightly weaker tracks, or come up with a couple more. ‘No Fear’ doesn’t quite have the same fizz of the initial salvo. ‘Salve For Every Sore’ drives up the speed again with a woozy background that doesn’t fully land. The album then switches back and forth between outstanding tracks and a few slightly more average ones. Other highlights are ‘1835,’ lead single ‘Star,’ ‘Lifetime’ and ‘Holy Water.’ ‘Star’ is just a pure joy from start to finish.
For the most part, For The Love of Grace & the Hereafter is a stunning joy. A thrilling display of guitar excellence. Rønnenfelt’s stream of conscious lyrics flit around in all sorts of directions. Plenty of observations on love, but a wide range of targets come in and out of focus. This is an album built to be played live, the shows to support it, along with their deep back catalogue, are likely to be brilliant. They are playing two sold out appearances at The George Tavern this Saturday, the 30th of May, which are likely to be iconic in that venue. No full size venue dates yet though, book them in when they appear.
Essential Tracks: ‘Ember,’ ‘Match Head Girl,’ ‘The Weak,’ ‘1835,’ ‘Star,’ ‘Lifetime’ and ‘Holy Water.’
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