Iceage | You're Nothing

Matador Records (2013)

By LIZ PELLY | February 11, 2013

3.0 Stars

There's something intriguing about the ways Copenhagen punk band Iceage seem simultaneously to care so much and so little. On the page, the lyrics to You're Nothing (recorded on the Danish island of Møn last May) are noticeably minimal yet hyper-emotional. And on record, Elias Bender Rønnenfelt sounds simultaneously full of both rage and angsty boredom. The impact of this sophomore album — a more psychologically and aesthetically involved record than their debut, 2011's critically acclaimed New Brigade — is in the cross between those dueling coming-of-age sentiments, ones to be expected from a band who are this young. The lyrics resonate hard, though, felt most strongly when Rønnenfelt sings with broad expressive shouts: "Pressure, pressure/Can't take this pressure" on opening track "Ecstasy," "Excess/excess/excess" on "Coalition," "Waiting/waiting/waiting/waiting," at the start of "It Might Hit First." They sound like punk mantras.

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