ALBUM REVIEW: I Heard They KILL Live!! – Ice Nine Kills
It’s a tough world out there for musicians right now. Without the ability to showcase their latest body of works to the masses in person has been a huge blow to bands and their fans around the globe. While there has been a need to shift focus on how bands release their music and how they connect with their audiences away from the stage, many bands have harnessed this change in consuming music in 2020 with livestreams, live albums and rarities/special editions taking centre stage. ICE NINE KILLS are one such band and their live album I Heard They KILL Live!! is a love letter not only to their fans but to the career of the band themselves as the venue the album was recorded at holds a dear place in their hearts.
Going all the way back to 2000, frontman Spencer Charnas attended a gig at the Worcester Palladium which would change his life forever. A year after witnessing GOLDFINGER tear apart the stage, Spencer and the boys in ICE NINE KILLS would play their very first show. From that moment on they would grow to become one of today’s most unique and exciting metal bands in the scene with one of the most energetic and memorable live shows. Their sold-out hometown show from November last year was recorded and is now being released to fans worldwide and features not only tracks from their latest record The Silver Scream but also a ton of fan favourites and deeper cuts. The only question is, can their theatrical performances live be transferred onto an album?
Proceedings kick off with one of the biggest hits from their latest album with the bands’ ode to Jason Vorhees, Thank God It’s Friday. The crowd explode into life with the opening lines and then all hell breaks loose. The band sound energised and fired up for the headline set ahead of them. They tear through The Jig Is Up into the crowd-pleasing Savages. You can feel the energy from the crowd chanting along but sadly with the curse of the live album, their voices do get lost during most of the song overpowered by the music but it’s only a small gripe and you can understand the thought process behind turning down the crowd noise here and there to allow to recording quality to shine through. Speaking of recording quality, this is top-notch stuff. There’s very little to complain about in this respect and the levels are generally well-balanced. Only occasionally the harsh vocals are slightly too loud and guitars a little quiet. It would have been nice to hear a little bit more low end, but we are being very picky here.
Tracks from the band’s real breakthrough album Every Trick In The Book go down as well as expected with the guys smashing through Communion of the Cursed and Nature of the Beast with ease and you while you can’t see them, you can feel that they are having a great time feeding off the crowds support.
If there was any doubt that ICE NINE KILLS aren’t ready for arenas will be squashed after listening to the goliath hooks of A Grave Mistake and The American Nightmare. With the former showing off the power of Spencer’s vocals which are pitch-perfect live. There are a few surprises thrown in with live debuts of Thriller and Your Number’s Up off of the Final Cut edition of The Silver Scream. It ends, unsurprisingly with the aptly named encore of IT is the End which highlights how tight the band are live with the furious tempo changes and ska moments aplenty thrown in that would make Pennywise circle pit for the next 27 years.
This venue obviously means a lot to ICE NINE KILLS and to have them share this recording with their dedicated fans is truly special. While it cannot compare to their energetic horror-themed live shows, it does a great job of showing off the bands musicianship and pure talent with a magical greatest hit set that could and should be played in arenas in the years to come.
Rating: 8/10
I Heard They KILL Live!! is set for release on October 30th via Fearless Records.
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