IceageDanish teenage punks Iceage got chins wagging with their 2011 debut New Brigade. It was an album of unmistakable promise – 25 minutes of virulent punk rock with absolutely no breathing room and plenty of attitude – but it still left something to be desired. The album's intangible, missing piece was reflected in the conversation about the album, where everyone talked about how young Iceage were and what promise the album showed. Fast forward a couple of years – years heavy with touring on the back of New Brigade, getting signed to indie bigwig Matador and presumably, maturing – and Iceage's return in the form of You're Nothing captures the young band making good on the promise heard on their first LP.
Putting their best foot forward with album opener and stand-out track Ecstasy – a dense, frustrated, goth-y disco number – Iceage spend the rest of You're Nothing careening through a litany of post-punk and post-punk adjacent styles with the right mix of aplomb and unchecked wildness.
For New Brigade's rather strict atonality, You're Nothing has the band utilising a much more dynamic range of sounds. Without forsaking album number one's abrasiveness, You're Nothing ventures from the skronk of AmRep-esque noise rock guitars on Burning Hand to no wave-y coolness on tracks like Everything Drifts to fire-breathing hardcore on It Might Hit First. And listening as the band lithely slip in and out of these styles is a delight.
You're Nothing is the sound of a one-time hype band making good on their indubitable promise. And at a time when Pitchfork-approved bands are whipping the blogosphere into a furore as quickly as they're then being forgotten, Iceage's You're Nothing is definitely something.
