STYLE: Rock RATING OUR PRODUCT CODE: 87508-16234 LABEL: Zang Productions FORMAT: CD Album ITEMS: 1
Reviewed by David Ashley
This quirky duo are one of the numerous acts emanating from the Birmingham-based artists collective Zang Productions. Here they present an extremely clever trip hop/math rock buffet for people who like their music intricate, ambient and dripping with glitchy goodness. It's a pointless exercise to try and do reviewer's "sounds like" games with post-rock/experimental artists as they're all striving to be creatively unique. So I'll simply namedrop Boards Of Canada, Trifonic or DJ Shadow and move on. I will point out that this remains a highly natural feeling album - shying away from lots of synth textures and instead features incredibly innovate with guitar loops, funky muted drums, lush Rhodes chords, soaring strings and a very soothing sense of wellbeing. I especially enjoyed the martial-arts sampling "Hell Hath No Fury" on one track. The few vocals on the album also add nice garnish and though the rapping on "Graveyard Banter" does sound a little haphazard it actually fits with the swing of the track pretty well. I hereby proclaim Ickberg to be two geniuses. I genuinely loved this album from the first listen, and see no reason not to give it full marks.
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