When Iceage released their excellent 2011 debut, New Brigade, a large part of the discussion was dedicated to the nihilistic but crush-worthy Danish punk group's ages (at the time, ranging from 18 to 19), and the fact that they sounded much older than that. You also got stories about their bloody live shows and, later, online handwringing about them baiting controversy Joy Division-style by apparently flirting with fascist gestures at one of those shows. In the beginning, though, people were most interested in the part about four young dudes exploding out of "nowhere" (the Copenhagen DIY scene) fully formed and going on to release one of the best punk collections in recent memory. Their shows during that time were powerful in a very messy, very punk way. Two years later, they're a different band, one capable of more than shambling atmospherics and stage dives. Iceage write brilliant songs; on You're Nothing, they've found a way to clarify these compositional skills without stripping away their power.
Iceage's self-produced second album is even better than their debut. It's the quartet's first offering for the larger label Matador (the album's still being released by Escho in Denmark) and they come off even wilder and more chaotic than they did in 2011, but also more experienced and nuanced. They've honed the uncanny sense of classic punk songwriting-- the guitar sound's huge, the hooks more present, the charisma of dead-eyed, out-of-breath vocalist Elias Bender Rønnenfelt even greater. When you listen to the two records in tandem, you realize how brittle New Brigade was: "brittle" in an excellently fuzzed, rancid way, but You're Nothing is a heftier experience.
Unlike some groups who sign to a bigger label and beef up their sound in the wrong ways, Iceage used the new resources to hone what they already did well without abandoning what made them interesting in the first place. You can hear the shift on the industrial/ambient instrumental "Interlude", which helps to make Nothing darker and danker, and on "Morals", a mid-tempo piano-flecked track based on the 1960s Italian singer Mina's "L'Ultima Occasione". The odd reference fits here, building into a frenzy that finds Rønnenfelt hoarsely screaming "Where's your morals?" over militaristic rhythms. And, even with these slight tweaks, they don't fuck around: New Brigade offered 12 songs in 24 minutes, You're Nothing 12 songs in 28-and-a-half.
On the more typical Iceage songs, you get their mix of dirty punk and pulsing hardcore wrapped in an ink-black atmosphere, and Rønnenfelt's existential musings come in more powerful doses. The brilliant opener "Ecstasy", which sounds like a punk anthem mid-melt, strings together furious tempo changes, with, Rønnenfelt howling "I can't take this pressure" in the final implosion. "Coalition" is a classic rager, but you've never heard them doing doubled Sonic Youth guitar hooks like this. From "In Haze"'s clipped and twangy d-beat to the heavy bass of "Everything Drifts" to the spiraling anthemics of the title track, there are no weak spots. They chiseled things down for a reason: Great punk comes in spurts.
Rønnenfelt has said You're Nothing was inspired in part by his readings of Bataille, Genet, and the like. On these off-kilter anthems, you also imagine them reading Rimbaud, and get the sense that the group has taken Richard Hell and the Voidoids' "Blank Generation" to heart with lines like the title track's "Thats right, you're nothing/ Feel the void grow" and "Ecstasy"'s "But bliss is momentary anyhow/ Yet worth living for," along with the romantic surrealism of lines like "If I could/ Leave my body then I would/ Bleed into a lake/ Dashing away/ Disappear" from from "Morals". These are the sentiments of early 70s NYC punk made by kids who can look back on hardcore and post-punk to add fuel to it.
There was a moment at last year's Pitchfork Festival in Chicago that crystallized part of what makes Iceage fascinating: During their set, a bass head blew, then another, and then another. This is something that would usually cause a group to apologize, or blush, or throw a tantrum. But Iceage kept playing, didn't seem to sweat it, and calmly did their thing until someone else fixed the problem. Bassist Jakob Tvilling Pless looked around and shrugged it off. Rønnenfelt also kept going. In a way, it hardly registered. (Blank Generation, indeed.) It was my favorite moment of the weekend, and the most real: Iceage are a band who do these things honestly, and without thinking too much about it, and that's a big part of their power. That they back the attitude up with songs of this quality is what makes them unstoppable on You're Nothing.
