For most of their discography, Icy Demons have drifted in an experimental krautrock haze, keeping the stylistic boundaries malleable to maximize the fruits of their geographic cross-pollination. Headed by Bablicon's Griffin Rodriguez (aka Blue Hawaii) and Man Man/Need New Body's Christopher Powell (aka Pow Pow), the Demons' remaining revolving-door lineup consists of musicians from Athens, Ga., Philadelphia, and the Chicago area. While past albums have featured their fair share of bright spots, Miami Ice, the duo's third LP, makes a stark turn towards accessibility, and it's the kind of coup that elevates the Demons from "side project" to putative band status.
Icy Demons may chug along to stoic kraut pulses and amorphous jazz jams, but their sense of humor has always shone through. With Rodriguez's vocals now positioned front and center, the Demons sound more playful than ever. The eponymous track grooves on a Devo-like synth line, with Pow Pow's work on the skins galvanizing what could've been another motorik drone. The track's a bona fide single by any band's standards, and elsewhere on Miami Ice the Demons tinker with other methods of fusing catchiness and experimentation. The jerky waterfall melody on "1850" takes a cue from XTC, dazzling the listener vocally while constantly keeping them off balance with octopus-armed percussion. Even when lacking vocal hooks, Ice's cerebral arrangements can sound surprisingly tender. The twinkling guitar arpeggios on "Jantar Mantar" feel like Battles shrunken down to fit in your palm, and the sixty-second keyboard instrumental "Who There???" does Ratatat better than Ratatat seems able to these days.
Occasionally the genre-hopping veers into ridiculous territory, such as the elevator muzak on "Summer Samba" or the disco-punk one-off "Crittin' Down to Baba's", but a tongue-in-cheek touch makes sure these blunders don't detract from the rest of Ice. The detached, touch-and-go songwriting creates a glass ceiling on the album, and you get the sense they're almost robotically pinpointing some of these styles. Still, to take such sterile post-rock and extract this much fun from it is an accomplishment in the vein of Are We Not Men? Side projects are best when utilizing their low-stakes situation to take the kind of risks established bands balk at, and, by injecting a pop feel to their inchoate sound, the Icy Demons achieve this ideal. That is, if you still consider them as merely a side project.
