The Icarus Line
Sometimes, when you hear a band for the first time, words may be conjured up in your head about the music’s significance. In the case of the words that reach your mind when hearing The Icarus Line for the first ever time, they’re most likely to be:
‘Holy mother of God – what the hell is this?’
The reason for such thoughts to ooze into your conscious is because The Icarus Line are America’s currently maddest act: explosive, energetic, passionate, sincere, and ultimately bloody loud, they’re a coalition of the un-cheesy side of heavy-metal, alongside the vision of rock’s gritty, uncompromising future.
The group features five individuals: Joe on lead-vocals, Aaron North and Alvin DeGuzman on guitars, and Lance Arnao and Jeff Watson on bass and drums. The band as The Icarus Line originally began in 1998, from the ashes of its former incarnation, Kanker Sores. They started out by touring the Western part of the US – the group originally spawning in LA, after all – in Aaron’s pick-up truck that lacked not just air-conditioning, but also seat-belts and a stereo. Strangely, the band still prefer to travel during tours in vans, as opposed to luxury tour-buses. Yes, keeping it real has never seemed so odd.
Following this jaunt, the group immediately entered the studio to work on their debut work, with, incidentally, their first EP being comprised of original Kanker Sores material, entitled – catchily – ‘Highlypuncturingnoisetestingyourabilitytohate’. The subsequent release was ‘Red & Black Attack’, which surfaced on New American Dream Records, dedicated to their late drummer Tim Childs, who died in a car-crash the year before. Their image around this time evolved to donning sharp, black attire with red ties, which is now their legendary live-performance costume. However, rather than come across as chic, this was an endeavour to, in fact, steer away from the concept, and instead highlights the falseness of even having an ‘image’.
Up to 2000, the band toured extensively, recording tracks along the way for a split-release with Ink & Dagger, and a single for the cult Buddyhead label – also a legendarily risqué dot-com. However, by the end of this period, work had soon been undertaken – and completed – on their debut LP, ‘Mono’, unleashed on Crank! Records in 2001 to immediate open-arms in the heavier rock-circles, as well as those wanting to be deemed cool by being associated – namely, Courtney Love.
The record was a roaring collision of punk-energy, Black Flag brashness and garage-rock production. Tracks such as the single ‘Feed A Cat To Your Cobra’ and opener ‘Love Is Happiness’ are probably the most impacting, yet the whole listening-experience is an entirely breath-taking – if overwhelming – experience. The quintet’s official website said the result of this recording was ‘of five 21 year olds looking back on many years of strangeness and looking ahead to hopefully many more.’
This may be the case, but they will always be best known for their raucous live performances, which – more recently – have seen not just an impeccably tight and well-ordered delivery of chaos, but also the most epic instrument-smashing and stage-diving to be viewed for years.
The Icarus Line have proven that ‘being underground’ is often quite a pleasant place to be… Well, until they become properly discovered by the mainstream that will seek to exploit them, at which point they’ll probably remain ace… But just more lucratively ace. :)
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