Test-Icicles - 'Boa Vs Python' / 'Dancing On Pegs' (Domino)
3/5
By: Michael Lewin
Hardcore, Hoxton-style, eh? It's been a while since I was an h/c boy, but I still, even in my wizened age, remember the lessons imparted by the scene. Some of the most visceral, immediate and f**king terrifying moments of my life occurred in relation to hardcore: I remember an NYHC show where I, at a tender 16, found myself in the kick-boxing mosh-pit, the crap subsequently thoroughly kicked out of me - I had a Vans sole imprinted on my face for like a week, I swear. It's brutal, it's anarchic, it's confrontational and it can be, at its best, life affirming and revolutionary.
Test-Icicles play the game pretty well, for the most part, (though let's ignore any genre-threesomes we're being buzz-fed about them: hip-hop/hardcore-metal crossovers...like, wudeva); they've just Shoreditched it, that's all. 'Boa Versus Python', like the best hardcore, will only work if it is played EXTREMELY LOUD. If you fail to play it EXTREMELY LOUD, you may miss the Refused-esque epileptic hand-job rhythms; the organ drama of Song of Zarathustra will not have the required insanity and the eye-of-the-storm melodic breakdowns, so very mid-90s Yaphet Kotto, will not build up to the correct spazz-out-demanding dancefloor madness that it really deserves. Even the scream-shout-SCREEEEAM vocals won't feel as though some mad skinny kid is two inches from your face spraying saliva everywhere as his body tries 18 different dance moves at once, and the sheer overall madness of it won't encourage your limbs to flail and your sense of self to diminish as you just completely, totally lose it. You just know their live shows are incredible, their colour-coordinated hyper style and witty faux-aggression reminiscent of a shallow Locust. Everything is there, immediately in your face, visceral in the most disposable and entertaining way.
Which is kind of the problem, really. It's Hoxton Hardcore, like I said: Test-Icicles are confrontational and difficult in every superficial way, but that belies a quite conservative musical heart - there's none of the emotional involvement so important to hardcore. All the nah-nah-WHEEE-brahs and bee-BAH-do-duhs (they are definitely an onomatopoeic band) are artificial sops to hide straight-up song structures that are comparable to Bloc Party's formula of mathematically calculated perfection to the point of soullessness. It's all very intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-breakdown-superchorus, with none of the inventiveness that marks out hardcore's challenging high-points. The attack on your senses is too knowing, nothing quite so affecting as the genuine rage and passion of, say, Portraits of Past. It's indie rock with a Spock haircut, a white belt and a few Orchid records: far too much surface, basically.
Which gives Test-Icicles a position unique to them, I suppose - though their formula wouldn't work over an album, nobody else is doing this right now. B-side 'Dancing On Pegs' shows they can vary the sound, with a much more bass-driven assault, but that structure is still there. But then, who demands revolution on a debut single? Compared to the most original, inventive bands of a scene they merely reference heavily, they do perhaps suffer slightly - but only because of their brilliant superficial ingenuity and visceral appeal. They may hide a conservative heart, but this is spazzy, confrontational pop near its best, that demands you dance with people who look very cool until you hurt. They suggest riots, insurrection and insanity, but really they're having too much fun to care. Which has its place.
Artists in this article: Test-Icicles
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