Drums are important. All too often in guitar-based music nowadays, the drums take a back seat to the chug and thrash of the guitars and the throb of the bass. More often than not, the snare’s muddy and the cymbal work crashes through to create a hissy mesh. Time was – back in the 80s, I guess – when there was a sound whereby the percussion propelled everything else, a crisp, dominant snare providing both a focal point and a sonic slap round the face. And that’s how ICO’s new album sounds: the gritty bass and relentless guitar assault, not to mention the hollered vocals, all sit tightly against a mechanised drum sound with tight high-hats and minimal cymbal splashes.
‘Mirzam’ marks an explosive, frenetic start to the album, bursting and buzzing from the speakers, the buzzaw guitars and insistent, nagging bass and lead line jittery against a pulverising percussion. This is a different kind of (post)hardcore, the most obvious reference point perhaps being Head of David in the way that it relentlessly drills and grinds.
There’s a compellingly hypnotic interlooping guitar line on ‘Betelgeuse’ and things get seriously snarly and gnarly on the claustrophobically intense ‘Adhara’. There’s a skittering restlessness to ‘Sirius B’ that is blown aside by a relentless, repetitive riff before ‘Polaris’ scorches in, slower, heavier and nastier than the preceding tracks.
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If ‘Bellatrix’ is rather standard rock – albeit edgy, anxious and anxietised – then the monumental closer, ‘Rigel’, which clocks in just shy of 11 minutes, more than compensates: driving guitars and chugging bass are propelled by a persistent toppy snare and the vocals writhe lower in the mix. There’s a rumbling droning ambient mid-section that builds a calm-before-the-storm-tension and then a punishingly heavy, Swans-like battery of half-tempo punishment descends and crawls to the close. It’s powerful stuff, and surely enough to send anyone into cerebral overdrive.
Incoming Cerebral Overdrive Online
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