Chaos in Tejas 2013: Sunday

Screaming Females



There were these brief moments during Screaming Female sets when frontwoman _ _ would do what could be considered the equivalent of stage banter. In this incredibly small and mouse like voice she said hi to the crowd and said what the next song was. I bring this up because it was just shocking to hear her speak like this considering during every other moment of the set _ was an absolute monster, from the way she projected every lyric with the might of a jet engine to her unhinged guitar playing, which shoulder problems or not (the Steve Albini guitar waist guitar strap was the only testament to this fact) hadn’t lost an ounce of power or sheer face melting capabilities. The whole band was tight and intense as everyone before me had always said, and I could only imagine that a full set by would have knocked me back senseless.

Milk Music



You could tell to a certain degree that the members of Milk Music were a bit exhausted while playing. Which was fine really, it just meant they played a little looser than they did Thursday night. Which was ironic because they played more into the indie rock roar of their music then the Neil Young guitar burning they could have. The inclusion of more cuts from their Beyond Living EP probably contributed to this as well, which certainly got more heads in the crowd bopping. Milk Music was just as great as they were Thursday, and played with as much passion as they could muster, festival burnout or not. The fact that the guitar strap of the same guitarists fell off once again though served to this fact in a charming sort of way.

Merchandise



If Merchandise’s set on Saturday was bent around their emotional edge, then Sunday was all about the intensity that lurks underneath. The set was almost completely changed up, pulling both from their debut LP and more from the more risk-taking tunes on their most recent Totale Nite EP. The shifts in sound were nicely reflected thanks to whoever was in charge of lighting, who was having a field day bathing the band in dark red and blue lights, with some strobe thrown in for good measure. The damn really burst though when the band started playing _, and they had a member of the audience throw a beer bottle piñata into the crowd. At which point the stage diving started and a mini-mosh pit took hold of the front of the crowd for the rest of the show. It was nutty & chaotic, and noisy & utterly glorious in the best ways in those all too brief 30 minutes.

Puce Mary



I had no idea what to expect when I went into see Puce Mary. Being part of the Posh Isolation group (Iceage, VAR, Sexdrome), and having her material describe in the broad terms of “power electronica” I was expecting another emotional, cathartic, and dark set like the likes of Pharmakon. And while intense, Puce Mary’s music was nothing like Pharmakon’s. She leaned on ambience as much as noise, in fact make up almost half the set to slowly building up the pulse that was coming out of speakers with slight temp changes and pitch shifts. By the time she began to incorporate her vocals, in of course a twisted, purely instrumental way, her music had already enveloped the surroundings. It was a shame Puce Mary ended so briefly, the spooky intensity she had been crafting reaching its peak right when she turned it off.

Wolf Eyes



I know Wolf Eyes are noise legends, or at least a staple in modern noise music. But after four days of an absolute blistering attack on my senses, I could take nothing from the set. The moment they started playing, it just felt like an overload switch kicked in. I covered my ears, and left after the first song. I just couldn’t take it.

Lower



Lower thrived Sunday night in the dark space of Holy Mountain. Most impressive was the new material they debuted. Having only two singles to their names allows for a lot of material to appear “new”, yet you could tell how much more complex and powerful some of the material in the set was. They were even tighter than they were on Saturday, blasting through their material with this broken passion that I hadn’t noticed before. Frontman Adrian Toubro looked like he was aching at the microphone, as if the power of the songs was about to overtake him at any moment. The rest of Lower channeled all this, playing with a passive intensity that emphasized the darker parts of their intense post-punk. It was gloriously cathartic in the best possible ways.

Total Control



Take everything I said about Total Control on Saturday, and they were that, possibly even a little bit better. The set was made even better by the crowd, who was even more into Total Control then they were on Saturday, going absolutely berserk the moment they started. Not to say the crowd was in anyway static on Saturday, but here in the condensed space of Holy Mountain people were absolutely flying across the room in total disregard to anyone else. Having the frontman of Los Crudos and Carson Cox of Merchandise going jumping into the fray and going just as crazy made the show that much all that much greater. This set confirmed what I been thinking since Saturday; Total Control are without a doubt one of the best live bands I have ever seen perform.

Iceage



This was the Iceage show everyone wanted and everyone deserved. In no uncertain terms, Iceage were absolutely incredible, and their festival closing set might have been the best show I saw during the entirety of Chaos in Tejas. From the moment they began and the pure distortion of the beginning of “Ecstasy” rung out, it was obviously that this set was going to be nothing like the one on Thursday. Everything about Iceage on Sunday was more intense, more visceral, as if a band was channeling some mix of carnage and catharsis into musical form. All channeled through Elias Rønnenfelt, who prowled the stage, holding a steely glare that never faded as if everything deepened on this moment. His ability to collapse into the crowd allowed this intensity to be transferred into the crowd when need be, who were already going even crazier than they were during Total Control, a mix of people trying to match the fury of the music and those wanting to get as close to the band as possible in order to experience it in the most intimate/intense way possible. Even when the new songs were performed (a feat for a band who had just released a new record last February), not a drop of momentum was lost. Truly, a better band could not be asked to have closed Chaos in Tejas.

Chaos in Tejas 2013: Thursday

For once I finally experience Chaos in Tejas properly. After years of picking and choosing an off day or showcase to attend, I finally dived in and made it each progressively more grueling day. I don't know how, but I managed to escape without a broken nose or broken bone, though my ears were ringing for days after, and several black and blues appeared on my body that weren't there before. And it was incredible. Running around Austin, jumping between venue to venue in a desperate attempt to not miss anything or band, not to mention seeing performances by artists you never thought in a million years you would ever see, unfolding before your eyes mere minutes after another. Something in the Austin air shifts; the mix of incoming summer and a culture that is not often nurtured here taking root for a small but highly concentrated amount of time. It's right there in the title. It's chaos, and it is absolutely perfect.

Iceage



Iceage’s set should have been the show that kicked Chaos in Tejas with a massive bang. They were returning Tejas champs who absolutely killed when I saw them exactly a year ago right before they opened for Moss Icon, despite playing a set mostly filled with then just recorded and unknown You’re Nothing songs. Yet here, Iceage had everything going against them. They were playing E115, a giant, un-air conditioned warehouse with poor sound which mulled the power of most of their songs rather than adding some possible DIY charm. The crowd was also insanely unresponsive toward the band, not even glaring cross armed, but just standing still, barely a most push to be had, even when “Collation” kicked in. A bad Iceage show is still better than a quality show from an indie band, and Iceage still were still awesome in that way only Iceage can be. But having to pause for 5 grueling minutes in order to mix a microphone problem sort of sealed their fate; when the band walked off stage, they were a bit defeated.

The UV Race



In a word UV Race was absolutely absurd. Five Aussies who took the stage, ragged and seemingly drunk who played the most sloppy, art-damaged post-punk imaginable, with a front man who instantly stripped down to just his underwear for the entire set, and a guitarist who switch to a saxophone for half the band’s set. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought the band was playing a massive joke on everyone. But absurd as it seemed at time, UV Race was awesome in the most unserious way possible. They knew exactly what they were doing, and blasted their music through the murky and terrible mixing at Red 7 with drunken disregard to everything but the ruckus they wanted to make.

Parquet Courts



I was not expecting Parquet Courts to be this good. Parquet Courts shouldn’t have been this good. But Parquet Courts were that good. Spending a year touring behind Light Up Gold more than likely tightened the screws on anything loose with the band because they played not with some haphazard, whatever attitude, but a genuine “fuck it, we are going to play are silly songs as passionately as possible” mindset. They were great, the intended intensity of their songs that wasn’t there on their album was blasting out of the speakers Wire twisted indie rock glory. They were also the band to finally get the crowd moving, the 1-2 build-up of “Master of My Craft” to the burst of “Borrowed Time” triggering a small but impassioned mini mosh-pit that the band retained for the rest of the set. The band closing on “Stoned and Starving” should have been a come down, but they instead warped the song into an increasingly intense and knotty post-punk loop of noisy guitar and spoken words that was something to behold.

Milk Music



Milk Music were the perfect come down from the manic energy of Parquet Courts. Druggy enough so you could get lost in it, but Dinosaur Jr noisy enough so that the music was never boring. The set defined how much Milk Music has changed since they released the Beyond Living EP. The rhythm is so much sturdier thanks to their bassist, and their new guitarist is the heart of the band, never letting up on playing, even when his strap broke right during the beginning of a song. They get lost in sections; a riff they hold steady, a solo that goes on and on. This might make it seem like they spent their 40 minutes on stage noodling, but that was so far from the case. Milk Music rocked in a way that felt deeply old-school, but wasn’t cliché or an annoying indulgence into the past. It wasn’t captivating or energetic the way mostly everything else at Chaos was, but it did leave my ears ringing in just the right way.

The Bats



It’s hard to say what was so awesome about seeing The Bats live. It was just four, fifty year olds playing tight pop after tight pop song. Technically, nothing more. However, almost exactly like when the Clean played last year, it more seeing the fact that you were seeing something you never thought you would see, a once in a lifetime performance in Austin of a band that always only existed in record form. Maybe it was just that, legends getting confirmed as legends because The Bats were so good. Just song after song from their massive discography that rang in the ears for those perfect 150 second before they went onto the next one. They must have played over twenty songs, and each one was just as catchy was the one that came before it. It was jangle pop in all its greatness and everything it can be, crystallized, and performed to a rabid audience. It was just great.

Album Review: Iceage-You're Nothing

Aggression and anger were the fuel that ran through Iceage’s New Brigade. The metaphorical life blood that powered the band, this is despite the fact that for the most part there was an underlying restraint to New Brigade. Sure, Iceage’s debut could become intensely loud and blistering fast, but looking back they held a lot back; letting their songs collapse beneath clanging, guitar created noise rather than detonating them, or within the lyrics, which communicated mood easily but emotions only in the vaguest of sense. The catharsis was always tangible, but never completely realized.

You’re Nothing is the long coming release, a band that has shed their protective, apathetic shell to embrace raw, pure emotional turmoil, anguish, and energy. The shift happens a minute into the opening cut “Ecstasy”, after just pummeling your ears with an metallic, icy, and coiled guitar and drum barrage, drops to a crawl for the chorus of “pressure/pressure/oh god no”, with frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt shifting his usual detached bark to a throat tearing yell. You can almost picture him clutching head as he sings the lines.

“Ecstasy”, besides signifying the new emotional/cathartic release that Iceage embrace throughout You’re Nothing, also establishes how the band has somehow managed to become much noisier in their songs, yet somehow also become catchier in the process as well. Take the second track “Coalition” which is an even more of a blur than “Ecstasy”. It sounds like a hardcore band playing a shoegaze song, right down to the sexual confusion of the within the lyrics, the guitars are little more than rising and falling pitches of distortion. Yet, they work so well, giving way to a chorus with even more guitar ferocity that still manages to contain the central hooks of the songs as the lyrics are spewed out in the blink of the eye. The album follows this formula nearly throughout, presenting a bleak, angry, aggressive, but memorizing beginning before launching into a chorus that doesn’t shed any of these elements, but still brings in a new, addictive sheen that cements the likes of “In Haze”, “Burning Hand” and “Awake”. Even songs that deter from this like the piano laden “Morals” (which I don’t know how the band managed to pull off within the context of You’re Nothing but did), still operates perfectly on the principle of tension and release that Iceage create throughout this record.

The band’s lyrics and Rønnenfelt’s vocal delivery are the secret weapon on You’re Nothing though. What will probably be an over looked element due to Rønnenfelt having a Colin Newman level accent, the vocals are not the most prominent element in the mix, but are a notch higher than they were on New Brigade. Their higher presence is a necessity to emphasis the increase lyrical power the band has obtained on You’re Nothing. The lyrics are clear, goth influenced prose that capture a growing sense of despair, lack of self-worth, and emotional torment caused by other people. But the lyrics are not just black hole of darkness; the band paints in shades, bringing flickers of light and understanding, however brief their presence maybe. He sings with such pitch-perfect vitriol that even when listening to a track composed entirely in Danish, “Rodfæstet”, one can still feel the intensity contained in every word. By the time the album reaches its closing and title track, the repeated shouting of “YOU’RE NOTHING” feels anything but one dimensional, instead feeling like no other lyrics would do the song justice.

Aggression-rooted music truly isn’t a style that truly allows for evolution because then next step for those emotions (sadness, apathy, possibly happiness) are in such a different direction from the source the end result winds up sounding nothing like the starting point, and in turn worse. You’re Nothing proves how wrong this is, how fury, channeled Joy Division-like realism and intensity, channeled through nihilistic prose can result in something not just better than their last effort, but glorious as well.




Links:

Iceage's Website
Buy You're Nothing here, from Matador Records

Video: Iceage-Ecstasy

Their is something ironic in a band like Iceage releasing a track named "Ecstasy". The title invokes a sense of utter happiness and joy, and of all the emotions Iceage tend to evoke with their music, happiness or joy really aren't there. However, watching the video for "Ecstasy" it a makes sense; the track is about release, whether that involves going crazy at a show, being with friends, or burning flowers. The almost collage of images used manage to be very simple and homemade, but also deeply evocative at the same time. It also helps that "Ecstasy" is an utterly incredible track, an insanely twisted post-punk song that manages to be both catchier and more aggressive than anything they have ever made be for. Elias Bender Rønnenfelt's cries of "pressure/pressure!" that make of the song's chorus is an equal cry of rage and anguish that perfectly captures the dual nature of the track. Iceage have been slowly peeling back their stoic rage with their new songs, revealing an angry and pained center to their songs that makes them even more powerful, something makes "Ecstasy" greater than it already is.



Links:

Iceage's Website
Pre-order You're Nothing here, Matador Records

Iceage-Coalition

After getting a chance to see Iceage live at Chaos in Tejas last year, and in turn get to hear about six brand new tracks, I was beyond excited for how their new album was shaping up. When the announcement came that it was coming out on Matador and would be dubbed You're Nothing, my blood sped up even faster. Now that the first taste has come in the form of "Coalition" I am grateful I have not suffered a heart attack from pure joy.

"Coalition" is the perfect next step for Iceage. The track is mildly, mildly brighter than anything present on New Brigade, with the guitars particularly losing most of their brittle, metallic edge that defined them. However, they are no less a driving force, tunneling and barreling through out the song, especially placed next to the utterly excellent drum work contained within the track. However, any missing intensity is made up by front man Elias Bender Rønnenfelt's vocals. While no slouch in vocal delivery previously, on "Coalition" he just comes to life, equal parts snotty, jagged, and angry. His howl of "EXCESS" that makes up the band's minimalist chorus is spine tingling. "Coalition" is two minutes of pure post-punk fury, uncoiled and unleashed.



Links:

iceage's Website
Pre-order You're Nothing here, from Matador Records

War-Brodermordet

Finding out that the front man of the incredibly great punk band iceage is collaborating with a member of the also great hardcore band Sexdrome (who I free admit to discovering through iceage's cover of them), the part of my brain that love's loud music started doing back flips like I'm guessing everyone's who read the headline as me. Then I clicked on the actual track, and it blew my mind...mainly due to how it is in no way a punk song. Apparently these two violent men managed to channel their dark, violent urges into this bleak, throbbing track dubbed "Brodermordet". Lo-fi synth and drum beats fade in and out, bringing to mind the more spaced out work of Total Control, with barely audible vocals popping in to give "Brodermordet" just enough of a sinister undertone as well. Not at all what I was expecting, but still an excellent track none the less. Can't wait to see how the rest of this 7" turns out to be.



Links:

Pre-order War's At War with Youth 7" here, from Sacred Bones Records

iceage-IIIIIIII

 

(Picture via ...it disappears...)

Back when everyone and their mother (me included) was going crazy over iceage's New Brigade, nearly everyone included a comparison to Pink Flag-era Wire in some fashion. This is brought up because I think this is the track that is the root of all those comparisons, even if it didn't appear on the album. "IIIIIIII" just hit the internet, being a part of a Japanese release of the album. It's actually a cut from the band's debut single, but that's unimportant. It's a manic and knotty tune at the same time, with mini-tension built around and up like any of iceage's great blitzkrieg of a song, releasing into mild melody with the chorus, then starting all of that again in less than a minute. It's an excellent track that fits perfectly within New Brigade's structure, and I'm glad that the rest of the world is able to hear another near-perfect iceage track.



Links:

iceage on myspace

Album Review: iceage-New Brigade

The sudden blog heavy love for iceage will probably go down as one of the most surprising pushes for a band this year. Not that it is unwarranted; far from it. As anyone who has managed to a copy of New Brigade in the US (not an easy feat, by the way) can attest to how good the album/band are (more on that in a second). But the fact is this is a band has been around for almost two years, and released a seven inch that served as a precursor to most of what's on New Brigade to not so much as a squeak from the blogosphere (though it did do great in the punk circle that iceage original come from). The sudden yelp of blogs, who rarely care for punk bands unless they are covered in lo-fi (not that there is anything wrong with that genre either), seems to have come out of nowhere, along with the equal strange desire to lump iceage with with the emerging "darkwave" scene.

So the best to approach New Brigade is to strip all that precedent that presides it and simply view it as an album that serves as the first impression for a band truly not known in the US. That means New Brigade is possibly one the best first impressions to ever be made. In a sense, its the same feeling I got when I listened to Cloud Nothings the first time, even if it triggered completely different emotions. The same immediate, yet strange catchy-ness that is attached to it that caught me off guard because it was their first release. "How is it possible for a band that just started to be this good already?"

Iceage are cynical, nihilistic kids from Denmark, making equally dark, nihilistic punk as an out growth of their life and surroundings. There is a clear cut hardcore back bone to it, but stops itself from being that. Nor is it post-hardcore; lacking any of the guitar work or direct sounds that make up the genre. Instead it's as if Pink Flag era Wire had decided to try to make a hardcore album, and succeeded. Much like Pink Flag, New Brigade jumps from one style to another with grace, from direct catchy punk tunes ("Broken Bones, Remember", "You're Blessed"), more experimental numbers ("White Rune", "Collapse"), to the most frenzied of songs ("Total Drench", "Count Me In"). All the while, the same trebled-to-the-max guitar lines, near blurred drum beats, and apathetic vocals make up the core of every song, yet always come out new or different on each song as well. It's potent without being overwhelming. Loud and cathartic, but excellent melodies buried within as well. New Brigade is as excellent a punk record as any blog piece has said it is. When both Altered Zones and Maximum Rocknroll are agreeing on the merits of an album, it is for good reason.

(mp3) iceage-White Rune
(mp3) iceage-Broken Bone
(mp3) iceage-Collapse

Links:

iceage on myspace
Pre-order New Brigade here, from What's Your Rupture? out June 21