Jesus Christ, this is bad. I wasn’t particularly fond of Ice Black Birds’ last single ‘Ears To The Ground’. Somehow, this time around, they’ve managed to plumb the depths further, producing the sort of bluesy rock sewage that is creakier then Charlie Watts’ arthritic wrists.
They play vintage blues rock, but it just isn’t remotely vibrant. There is no edge ala The Black Keys, or any raw curiosity to their sound. Something is amiss here, young chaps playing dated rock note for note, vocalist Sam Denniston pretending to be Mick Jagger. Where is the modern twist? The cocksure swag? I commented on the irrelevance of this brand of rock in the last review and, at the risk of repeating myself, the accusation still stands.
Who’s paying to see Ice Black Birds live? Old Teddy Boys, the type of folk who will spend nearly a hundred quid on a limited edition reissue of Exile on Main Street. In other words, people who are stuck in the past.
Ice Black Birds need to cut their hair, melt down all their vinyl from the sixties and seventies, take some modern drugs, burn out on some chillwave and get with the times.
