Iceage

The second full-length from Copenhagen-based punk quartet Iceage, You're Nothing was recorded in an old farmhouse on the Danish island of Møn, a popular tourist destination known for its sandy beaches, old town markets and picturesque countryside. It's not exactly the type of environment that comes to mind upon hearing the dark angst and ruthless energy displayed on the band's follow-up to 2011's New Brigade. Over its 12 tenaciously gritty tracks, You're Nothing reveals itself as an album that operates in contrasts. Amidst a sonic atmosphere of clenched-fist roughness, one can find stark beauty and honest emotional value in the lyrics of lead singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt. On opener "Ecstasy," Rønnenfelt bellows about the mundane struggles of everyday life over the relentless thrash of trudging noise punk. "Each day another rock upon my head" he laments, as if alluding to the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who was doomed to push a boulder up a hill for eternity, only to have it tumble down at the end of each day. Yet, in the end, Rønnenfelt finds beauty and, indeed, ecstasy in life's monotonous struggles, stating, "bliss is momentary anyhow, yet worth living for, take me now." The freedom and looseness of Iceage's raw brand of anthemic post-punk work in opposition to the persistent sentiment of confined isolation and existential angst. The album offers an appropriate representation of the feeling of existential, isolated freedom you might experience when looking out over the Baltic Sea from atop the white cliffs of Møn, thinking to yourself, "you're nothing."