Here's my take on the two releases of Ice Queen, the new project of Leeches of Lore's leader Steve Hammond. The debut was released back in March while the second was just unleashed earlier this week. The reviews are part of a new thematic series focused on "ice" related bands!
Ice Queen – Ice Queen (2018)
Ice Bucket Challenge I
I was saddened to hear of Leeches of Lore's recent termination but I was confident that their leader Steve Hammond would continue to produce top notch music and I wasn't wrong. Ice Queen, his new solo project, is basically a continuation of his former band with many twists and spins.
The
first really noticeable element is the fact that it's pretty much a
voluntarily raw project and it’s much heavier than what Leeches of
Lore did on their latest albums. Hammond seems to be fine with just
unleashing simple but efficient ideas with almost an approach similar
to automatism. Motel of Infinitely, LoL’s swansong showed heavier
tendencies but Ice Queen isn’t as eclectic and varied as its former
identity. Hammond increased the noise, crust and thrash metal
influences and decreased the duration of his songs. That direction
made Ice Queen really intense, almost like a grindcore approach. The
guitars are thick but sharp and the bass is loud and filling (check
out “Burrowing”) and there’s hardly any time to rest except for
the country ballad of “Black Water”, a stylistic influence much more
prevalent in Leeches of Lore or Hammond’s other non-metal projects.
Ice
Queen are hard to classify, really. The structures are quite simple
but the coating has all kind of things to make it shiny and exciting.
It’s like if you took NWOBHM heavy metal but added a bunch of
iconoclastic thrash and Melvins-esque sludge to the formula. It’s
just fun riffs with an identity and soaring fun vocals. Hammond can’t
do no wrong as far as I’m concerned.
87%
Ice
Queen – Ice Queen II (2018)
Ice Bucket Challenge II
The
second release of Ice Queen expands where its predecessor left off
and brings out some new things to the fold. While the debut showcased
a brand new take of Hammond’s peculiar metal sound he spent a
decade exploring with Leeches of Lore, II has some fun with the new
sound.
Ice
Queen is once again built upon a core of fast paced heavy metal with
noise, hardcore and thrash elements but wait, there’s more! There’s
layers of experimentation here such as the minimalistic dark ambient
of “An Abandoned City” or the noise and voice effects of the
closer “Quiet”. There’s also a bunch of metal experimentation
such as the doom/death riffs of “The Witch King of Urbana” which
are intertwined with eerie bits of electronica or the ghostly drone
of “Dreams, Dreaming” and it all works. Hammond’s signature
special move is that he’s able to assemble a wide array of styles
together to form a solid, oozing mass capable of grasping your
interest till you’ve heard the same twenty minutes album on repeat.
Regardless
of the experimentation, there’s still some pretty metallic bangers
like the thrashy/sludgey anthem of “Blizzard of Ants” with its
harsh screams or the incisive Mastodon-esque “The Bunt”. All in
all, Ice Queen II justifies its existence by exploring other themes
than the debut. It would had been easy to release them as a “full
length” album of forty minutes but I like that shorter format. It’s
easy to focus on the different strengths of those to the point
compositions and gather everything you can from them.
84%
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