FUSE TV - Danish Punks Iceage Pummel With Searing New Album

Danish punk band Iceage are barely out of their teens, but have already released two pummeling albums. Two years, the quartet released their debut album New Brigade, which used punk and hardcore as an anchor, but incorporated post-punk and goth to create a more ominous album than their more primitive peers.

Now, the group has returned with follow-up You're Nothing, retaining the brashness of their debut, yet augmenting the album with previously unheard elements. "Coalition," the lead single, is the perfect soundtrack to bashing someone face's in with a hammer. But there's also "Morals," the closest the band has gotten to a ballad (Don't worry: It still grinds and scares).

"We started last May and recorded for six days on a small Danish Island called Møn," explains bassist Jakob Tvilling Pless. "The studio was built on an old farm on the island. It was a last minute decision to call the album You’re Nothing. We discussed other ideas as well, but that one seemed like it was the most fitting one."

The band graduated from small label What's Your Rupture? for Brigade to Matador for Nothing. After the release of Brigade, multiple labels came knocking, yet for the DIY band, creative control was paramount.

"A number of different bigger labels had contacted us and showed interest in the new record," says Tvilling Pless. "Part of the reason why we chose to release it on Matador, was that they didn’t try to interfere with the process of making the album or the artwork."

As they criss-cross the states through June, leaving a wake of mosh pits and bruised ribs in their wake, Tvilling Pless says it's a far cry from the early albums he listened to growing up in Denmark.

"I remember going to my friend's house a lot when I was a kid to listen to his brother's [German techno group] Scooter CD and I convinced my mom to buy me the [album] Scooter Stadium Techno Experience. That was the first CD I had. Probably not the first one I liked though."