Album Details

• Artist: Ice, Sea, Dead People
• Album: Teeth Union
• Label: myspace.com/iceseadeadpeople
• Year of Release: 2011
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2011-03-14

So here we have a Brit band barely out their teens, with snotty song titles, harsh occasionally atonal tunes, and a press release that consists entirely of a story of one of the band member's efforts to take a piss while his girlfriend nags him. So are Ice, See, Dead People the real deal or a one-off joke? A listen to "Teeth Union will not only convince you of their glory-and glorious potential-but also bring more than a few smiles to your jaded, alienated mugs. They would have to have done a lot to overcome the worst band name ever, (ok, along with Frumious Bandersnatch  maybe) and they have!

Their sound is a confrontational mix of punk, Mission of Burma/Gang of Four post-rock, with some Beefheart mixed in to thicken the gravy.  "Hence Elvis," "My Twin Brother's a Brother" and "Justin Klein" are dizzying in their time changes and metallic scraping minimalism. Often there are too many musical ideas going on in one song to keep up. Personal favorites include the muddy anger evident in "Laser Beam" and "Brrrr," which remind this aging Providence punk of the classic "This is Boston, Not L.A." era greatness of The Freeze and The Proletariat.

"Teeth Union" might first appear tossed off, and Ice, Sea, Dead People seem to go out their way to not be taken seriously. But this band has a LOT of chops on top of a deadly sense of humor. They also, for youngin's, have a devastating grip on some of the most experimental rock ever made, and they borrow and add to it at will here. Scary good.

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