This five piece from Minneapolis, USA are a credit to D.I.Y, no they don’t play in the back of truck stolen from General Motors in a protest against capitalism, well they might, who knows, but my point is that they’ve done a hell of a lot without label support, including scoring distribution in Japan and Europe. Certainly gives food for thought to those bands who place labels above everything else. And this independently released debut album is no shoddy affair at all, far from it in fact.
I’ll be honest from the start and say this isn’t my cup of tea, the band are described as a cross between DEP, Mars Volta and Radiohead. I can hear the influences throughout, but credit where credit is due; I wouldn’t say ICOLLIDE rip off these artists at all. So this is a heavy and relatively raw record which, right from the off, refuses to take any prisoners. Screams sound as convincing as a scream can sound; drums pound and the choppy rhythms more than keep you on your toes.
What strikes me about this record though is that nine tracks clocking in at a mere twenty-six minutes, it’s hardly in the Ben Hur awards for epicness. Maybe this is just as well, because after several listens in frequent intervals I’m just not finding anything that makes me want to come back for too much more, although this may be my personal taste as opposed to it being a bad record. And it’s not a bad record anyway; I can stay objective enough to state that ICOLLIDE pull this off well and actually better than most bands of this ilk I’ve come across this year. However, I do think they are preaching to the converted though with this album, I can’t see this winning over any new fans for this style. From what’s on offer here though, I can see plenty of people lapping it up. Certainly a solid and consistent effort.
Mike
www.icollided.com