A killer blow out of obscurity!
Artiste: Ice Age
Nationality: American
Album: The great divide
Year: 1999
Label: Magna Carta
Genre: Progressive Rock
Tracks:
Perpetual child
Sleepwalker
Join
Spare chicken parts
Because of you
The bottom line
Ice Age
Look away
Miles to go
To say goodbye, part I: Worthless words
To say goodbye, part II: On our way
Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid: After trying with Ice Age for two albums, the band changed their direction slightly and rebranded as Soulfractured in 2006. However they seem to have been doomed, as they only released two EPs under this name before disbanding altogether.
Initial impression: Great powerful progressive intro and when the singer gets going he's really quite good.
Best track(s): Perpetual child, Join, Spare chicken parts, The bottom line, Ice age
Worst track(s): Sleepwalker(but only in that it's marginally less excellent than the rest of the album)
Comments: These guys don't seem to have had much luck (see above blurb); perhaps, since they hail from the Big Apple, the lyrics of that old classic are right: if I can make it there I'll make it anywhere, and conversely, if I can't make it there I've no hope anywhere. Their output at any rate is limited to two albums under the Ice Age name and two EPs under their later identity as Soulfractured, each seeming to have been as unsuccessful as the last. They finally gave it up as a bad job in 2006, after their second EP was released.
So, did we miss something? Was there greatness there, unrecognised talent, a band who never got the chance to shine as they should have done? Or was it fitting they be consigned to the musical trash-heap of history? Well, opener
Perpetual child is certainly full of energy and enthusiasm, though whether it's a good idea to hit the world with a ten minute song as your first offering ever I'm not sure. It would, to be sure, want to be damn good to hold the attention. So far, I have to say, mine's not drifting. There's about two and a half minutes of music before the vocals come in, and when they do they're pretty good really.
There's a lot happening in this song and it never gets boring, so I'd have to say a successful opener and perhaps not so much of a gamble as I thought about the length: this is a song that needed to be more than four or five minutes long, and it certainly whets the appetite for the rest of the album. And it doesn't disappoint, with
Sleepwalker, Join and
Because of you all solid tracks, with a cool, er, little instrumental --- nine minutes long, almost, and seriously, worth every second --- in between, during which we even get a drum solo and a soundbite from "2001: a space odyssey" into the bargain! Don't see anything wrong with this! Of course, sometimes it's just bad luck, and not every good band makes it, so failure to break through doesn't necessarily mean you were no use, and that seems to be the case with Ice Age; from what I've heard so far, they should have made it. They just didn't.
Because of you just keeps up the high quality I've already come to expect from these guys and honestly, I'm already becoming a fan. Bit late, now that they are no more, but better late than never. It's almost becoming irrelevant talking about the tracks because each one seems to be as good as the previous, with
Bottom line a hard, stomping rocker with vocalist Josh Pincus snarling out the vocal like Meat Loaf and his compatriot Jimmy Pappas grinding his guitar like an angry wolf. But hold on: there's another epic coming, this one eleven minutes long, and it's the title track.
And it's another winner. I'm beginning to think there are no bad or even low quality tracks on this album. It literally just keeps getting better as I listen.Oh my god, now a beautiful, aching piano ballad in
One look away! Does this album ever stop improving? Thankfully, the answer appears to be no!
Overall impression: Seriously impressed, and rather amazed these guys had to break up without finding any sort of real success. What a shame.
Intention: Must listen to their other album, see if I can track down the EPs. That's unfortunately as much as I can do. But I highly recommend you listen to this one. You can get an idea of how impressed I was by the awarding of what I think may be the first ever four and a half cookies above!