Then Came the Punks

An introduction begins the album: marital production that mirrors an anxious heartbeat, repeated and unraveled into discordant, propulsive noise. What follows is a goth rallying cry sent into hyperdrive: “White Rune,” into the title track, into “Remember,” two-minute songs that, in their brief runtime, create dimension: the energy of a warehouse show, an exhale before the song begins, the speed in which a good riff can change your life. For fans of heavy, dark, metallic music, New Brigade is immediately unique but not unfamiliar: it is noise, it is no wave, it is abrasive and confident and full-bodied and brooding and so very styled. Comparisons can be made to neo-folk, to Wire, to Killing Joke, to Joy Division, but also to the fury of D-beat—failing and simultaneously, direct. No likeness is exact; New Brigade is a hardcore album that flirts with post-punk and death rock just enough to convince listeners it isn’t. Iceage were fresh and young and imaginative, even in singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s existential bellows. I struggle to describe the album now, as I did when I first heard it—it was, and remains, an ineffable thrill, the sacred and scarce sensation of music urgently taking aim and striking the chest.

Reviewers exalted the record, obsessed with the apparent mysteriousness of the band. How could a group this good appear out of nowhere, and with an album this fully realized? Some postured that Iceage were the saviors of punk, despite the music’s total global ubiquity and relentless spirit—and don’t indie rockers listen to Fucked Up?—punk never died, it only went largely unremarked upon in mainstream music circles at the time. At any rate, hype inspires hyperbole, and in the case of Iceage, it felt deserved.

New Brigade is an album I return to infrequently, savoring the flavor of every bite, irrationally concerned that it will lose its impact. In a decade, it never has, which is enough for me to label it a modern classic, but others may only be convinced when considering its legacy: without question, New Brigade brought punk conversation in a space it had been dormant in for some time (though they, themselves, are notoriously curt interviews): college radio hosts and music writers, those who spent the previous decade swooning over Vampire Weekend, Grizzly Bear, and Animal Collective, found themselves looking toward the beer-stained underground—just so slightly, a quick toe-dip, not a nose dive—and listeners followed. And unlike albums made by those artists, New Brigade doesn’t sound painfully 2011.

I wonder, too, if some of the speed in which Iceage’s appeal proliferated was extramusical—bonus points atop an undeniable record. Live, the band is bewildering to watch, unblinking. They wore teenage scowls atop polos and bomber jackets, trench coats, button-down shirts, and white tees tucked into fitting jeans—a far cry from the leather punks so frequently associated with this kind of music. On more than one occasion, genre purists have labeled and dismissed the band as “pretty boy punk.” While I’d usually avoid such a superficial descriptor, I find it to be relevant. (And as the preeminent Iceage scholar Zachary Lipez brilliantly writes, “We’re not supposed to talk about attractiveness of bands anymore; presumably not until that game is no longer weaponized against the Boy Bands made up of ladies. But The Strokes wouldn’t have been the Strokes if they’d looked like Guided By Voices, and neither would Iceage.” I tend to agree.) At the very least, Iceage symbolized a new kind of punk: fervent and Herculean as all hell, prone to bloody, high octane pits, but dressed up in a softer, more accessible masculinity—at least for those unfamiliar with or intimidated by the music.*

*And by music, of course, I mean anarcho-punks and their fashion.

Ten years on, I question if New Brigade would’ve inspired the same sort of immediacy as it did during the time of its release, if it came out in 2021. Truth be told, I don’t think it could’ve existed the same way: the album cover, for one, is runic, and the band has long since been accused of flirting with fascist iconography, like so many post-punk and oi! bands (and dumb ass teenagers) before them. They’ve since denounced those behaviors and have vocalized support for the Black Lives Matter movement, expressing left wing viewpoints, which is more than I can say for the Ariel Pinks of the world. And for what it is worth, no questionable politics or god forbid, hate speech, make an appearance on the album. It was all an image, and that image no longer exists.

What remains is a killer record, one that undoubtedly shaped punk and indie rock for years to come, one that eventually lead to Iceage to signing with big indie label Matador, international acclaim, main stage festival sets, award nominations, a decade long career with endless sonic pivots, Nick Cave worship, and a slew of other new rock bands studying Rønnenfelt’s morose baritone: England’s Shame and Sweden’s Holograms come to mind. And when I need it, like I do today, I’ll put on New Brigade—to feel its particular transcendence once more.