IN REVIEW: Iceage - "Plowing Into The Field Of Love"

If you've been following Danish art punkers Iceage from their inception, chances are your first listen to third album Plowing Into The Field Of Love will prompt some level of confusion. After all, this a band that built a reputation for their furious, hardcore influenced two minute slabs of noise that opts to open their new album with a five minute long ragged waltz, complete with piano.

Plowing Into The Fields Of Love isn't shy about blowing up the band's sound; this was clear from the time shuffling single The Lord's Favorite dropped, and Iceage spend the full 48 minutes of the album fearlessly (gleefully, even) plucking influences and trying to fit them into their aesthetic. It's like they're roaming the produce section at the grocery store taking bites out of whatever's within reach. There's the drunken new wave clutter of How Many, the explosive nervous energy that runs through Glassy Eyed, Dormant And Veiled, and the countrified post punk of Let It Vanish, to name a few (and that's just on side one).

The album's most thrilling surprises are on the second half, starting with rowdy pub rock number Abundant Living, which comes complete with mandolin. The slow burn of Cimmerian Shade is absolutely entrancing, drawing you in closer the more it unhinges. By the time the orchestra shows up on Against The Moon, it's almost like you've been expecting them. It all acts as a perfect set up to Simony, the album's penultimate track. Fusing some of their old tricks with a gothic, Cure-like vibe and charging headlong into a blissful crescendo, it provides the biggest payoff on the record.

Iceage aren't the first punk band to attempt to pry open the minds of their audience, and they won't be the last. It tends to happen with most of the artistically inclined bands, who sense the walls of sonic expectation closing in and look to escape before they become Bad Religion, longing to explore new ideas but scared out of it by a fickle fan base. The problem is, the approach usually results in abandonment rather than acceptance. Just ask Against Me!, who dared to allow God-given gifts of maturity and melodic prowess "ruin" their anarchic folk punk. They went on to lose the majority of their fan base in the process, but the ensuing records they made were so good they gained a new, bigger and more devoted, fan base.

Whether or not Iceage can pull off a similar trick depends on where they go from here, and this is assuming the majority of their fans won't take kindly to the band's new direction, but Plowing Into The Field Of Love certainly opens the door to an exciting, intriguing future for the band and whatever fans they gain or have left.

October 7, 2014 • Matador

Highlights The Lord's Favorite • Abundant Living • Simony