Icy Demons are a band seemingly determined to make people scratch their heads and offer a plaintive ‘what the fuck’. At the same time they seem determined to have fun, hopping around genres like kids with ADHD deprived of their Ritalin.
Icy Demons – Miami Ice
http://www.icydemons.com/v www.myspace.com/icydemons
Icy Demons are a band seemingly determined to make people scratch their heads and offer a plaintive ‘what the fuck’. At the same time they seem determined to have fun, hopping around genres like kids with ADHD deprived of their Ritalin. Basically they have taken a dozen or so genres, ranging from Jazz, Hip-Hop and even a bit of Krautrock.
The album mixes extreme silliness with tight, confident playing and complex arrangements full of sonic detail. It is as if someone in the Canterbury Scene had discovered synthesizers after a night on Red Bull and e-number laden confectionary.
Somehow the mix of genres and diverse instrumentation just about hangs together.
The band is essentially a side-project: Griffin Rodriguez (aka ‘Blue Hawaii’) is of post-rockers Bablicon, Christopher ‘Pow Pow’ Powell drums for similarly experimental Man Man and both were once in Need New Body. They utilise players from bands such as Man Man and Tortoise. The communal spirit lends itself to a loose-limbed and potentially unwieldy beast and there are some misfires: Summer Samba veers rather close to muzak territory and Centurion is a dollop of cheese. However when it works the efforts are huge fun – the title track in particular is a brilliant slab of silly brilliance which combines a Devo-like bass-line with lyrics about bananas.
All this jumping around genres could lead to a very wearisome listen. Thankfully, despite the sonic complexities of many of the arrangements, the album is kept brief – clocking in at less than 40 minutes. There is a lack of cohesiveness that would start to matter on a longer album, but on this brief blast of nuttiness is just fine.
Words: Rover