Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

Iceage

You're Nothing

Label: Matador Records Release Date: 18/02/2013

89117
rleedham by Robert Leedham February 13th, 2013

The great irony in reviewing Iceage’s latest album is these Danish nihilists don’t care what anyone thinks about them. You are either with them or you are against them. Whatever the case, You’re Nothing.

After making international waves in 2011 with their irrepressibly furious debut New Brigade, this four piece have ploughed blithely on towards oblivion. Where once they fearlessly cavorted between silence and post-punk extremity, their focus is now on pure and visceral noise. ‘Ecstasy’ is the template for You’re Nothing: a cataclysmic meld of everything all at once, its chaos both exhilarating and exhausting.

If you expected any concessions to conformity from Iceage’s second record, then you will be proved sorely mistaken. Given only 500 copies of New Brigade were printed before demand skyrocketed, frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt and his comrades are scarcely inclined to alter their creative instincts. Their affection for fascist imagery and flick knives seems to have dissipated but more than enough obstinance remains.

You’re Nothing is a provocatively loud album which barely pauses for breath. When it does, the ambient hum of ‘Interlude’ lasts a full minute and 44 seconds before leading into ‘Burning Hand’. This clattering juggernaut of intense savagery ends in Rønnenfelt screaming, “Do you hear me? Do you hear me?” It’s impossible not to.

Anyone who’s half-familiar with Black Flag or Minor Threat won’t find this schtick particularly new. In many ways it’s a regression from the taut dissonance of New Brigade. Only ‘Morals’ and ‘Rodfæstet’ stand out as noticeably different. The former judders along to a bleak piano-lead tune, while the latter is sung purely in Danish. Hardly revolutionary stuff, especially since Iceage have toured extensively with the genre-bending Fucked Up.

Despite its abrasiveness, You’re Nothing is resolutely conservative in its insular aim of pleasing the only audience that matters: Iceage themselves. Of course, they don’t care what you think about their latest album. Once the rabid whirlwind of hype subsides, you have to wonder if they might do... just a little bit.

  • 6
    Robert Leedham's Score
  • 7
    User Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Drowned in Sound's Albums of the Year 2025


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing



Left-arrow

Applescal

Dreaming in Key

Mobback
89114
89118

Jamie Lidell

Jamie Lidell

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Drowned in Sound's Albums of the Year 2025

  • 106149
  • news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145

    news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143
  • news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141

    news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139
  • Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138

    Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137
  • Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
MORE


GREATEST HITS

    review


    Sharon van Etten - Are We There

  • 95658
  • Playlist


    Playlist: Summertime Sadness

  • 100688

    feature


    Portishead discuss Third

  • 34958
  • feature


    Foals: "We're going to get weirder and weirder"

  • 26160

    review


    Biffy Clyro - Only Revolutions

  • 55003
  • review


    Coldplay - Ghost Stories

  • 95631

    news


    An Open Letter to Ryan Adams

  • 14604
  • Playlist


    Our Favourite Tracks of Q1 2015

  • 99412
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND