ICE, SEA, DEAD PEOPLE
Motorcycle Showrooms, Bristol | March 23rd
Test Icicles once screamed “We could do with some more poison!” … or maybe it was ‘noises’? Whatever it was, they were great, weren’t they?
There should be more noise rock breaking the charts. As far as we can see, the only way that’ll happen is if it’s written and performed by incredibly good-looking young men in highly fashionable clothing who hang out in East London warehouses and take their cues from hipster experimentalists like AIDS Wolf and Lightning Bolt. Tonight we’re waiting for them to take the stage in a disused motorcycle showroom, currently a functioning art studio, in central Bristol, and the crowd are positively buzzing for these upstarts to hit the stage.
Before that happens we’re introduced to Bad Guys, a band who apparently started as a joke. As they take the stage, all long hair and double necked guitars, it’s pretty apparent these boys mean business. Seriously chugging away into territory not covered this well since Sleep smoked so much dope they inadvertently created a new kind of sonic evil back in the 1990s, the only real difference is that Bad Guys songs cover slightly different ground than doom and recreational marijuana use. We’re taken on a whirlwind journey through the singer’s tormented childhood experiences in Toys-R-Us and arguments over furniture with the missus. If we ever thought Clutch meeting The Mighty Boosh would be a really, really shit idea, then we’ve had our minds thoroughly changed tonight. Bad Guys do for stoner rock what the Darkness did for glam, only they’re actually quite good.
After a brief fag break Ice, Sea, Dead People stroll onto the stage. As soon as they begin the crowd are all slack jaws and flailing limbs. The moment they stop someone in the crowd shouts something like “D’you know any Drowning Pool?” and the tone doesn’t get much more serious for the next 20 odd minutes of silly, stop-starty, math-rocky punk energy. Ice, Sea, Dead People have a silly name and a silly presence. There are inter-song references to everything from Magaluf to Chad Kroeger and the crowd warms to these skinny little shits in no time. The music is precision noise capable of making even the most hardened M.O.R fan thrash wildly and abandon all sense of respect for structure in songwriting. Ice, Sea, Dead People are young, dumb and full of noise, and they started a mosh pit in an art studio. Can you say that? Thought not.
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Words: Billy Black
Photo: Benjamin R. Haizelden (benhaizelden@hotmail.co.uk)
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