Ice Nine Kills: A New Nightmare

Every great horror franchise deservers a sequel, and once a massive horror film-themed album drops that showcases the perfect synchronicity of the metal and horror worlds and that causes a huge splash in both communities, then a sequel is most definitely in order. Boston theatrical metalcore veterans ICE NINE KILLS experienced that very situation after the release of their 2018 album The Silver Scream, a further exploration into the band’s absolute love of all things horror, but this time moving from books (touched on in the band’s Every Trick In The Book album) to film. With songs and expertly produced videos each inspired by a different horror film, the band had found a niche that immediately captured the hearts of those who love the darkness, both visual and auditory. And now, with the release of its sequel, the aptly titled The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood, lead singer Spencer Charnas has decided to enter his own horror story.

“What I wanted to do was pay tribute not just to horror movies, but the whole idea of horror franchises,” he says. “The fact that we had a hit ‘movie,’ the first time around, or at least a cult hit, we wanted to do a sequel where the overarching story is kind of playing on the idea of the film industry and the idea of whether life imitates art or art imitates life. But it’s a comic twist on everything. When you see Scream or New Nightmare, you see how they turned horror tropes on their head, and that’s what we’ve done here.”

Indeed, on the newly released sequel, Charnas and co. have crafted a whole new batch of individual songs that touch on classics like Evil Dead, American Psycho, and Candyman, but woven within each song on the tracklist is a brand new tale that portrays Charnas as the lead suspect in a grisly murder, and as the record states in its intro, the tracks that follow are all recordings ‘discovered’ by the LAPD that show just what a self-proclaimed “sick guy” Charnas really is.

“I basically wrote a movie treatment before I started working on the album,” says Charnas. “I yielded to the idea of writing this whole album out as how I would see the movie, and all the little skits of dialogue in the album is us trying to paint with the same brush strokes that the filmmakers did to these movies and do justice to them and put our own spin on it.” Adding with a laugh, “it’s just me having fun.”

But fun is exactly the right word to describe this new record. ICE NINE KILLS have definitely perfected the formula they were honing on the previous record and have gone even further to immerse listeners in the tone of each movie they portray in the songs. Rainy Day, for example, deals with the film adaptation of Resident Evil, and, like most action horror films released during the late 90s and early 2000s, the soundtrack to that film was full of adrenaline pumping electronics which were entirely in vogue at the time. But the band carries that exact same throwback feeling on the track itself, which certainly draws a smile of remembrance and nostalgia. The same goes for a track like Ex Mortis, about the Evil Dead franchise, which gets progressively more comedic and campy as each film progresses. Likewise, the band executes a swaggering, swing like tempo and extra theatrical flair for the track, which fits the mould of the movies perfectly. And to work on these tracks, Charnas turned to another metal band of great repute.

“I have to give a lot of credit to a guy we work with named Francesco Ferrini from the band FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, who is a very fine composer and amazingly talented,” explains Charnas. “When we’re in the final stages of a demo, and we’ve got the structure and lyrics and melody down, we send it to him and tell him what movie we’re paying tribute to. Then he takes that and pays attention to details like when the movie was released, what the score sounded like, what instruments and sound design they used. He just goes to town. It’s so rewarding to hit play and see what he’s done.”

Indeed, beyond the faithfulness in capturing the feel of each films themes and sonic and visual palette, the band went above and beyond to bring together guests from across the metal spectrum, from death metal to nu metal, to guest on this album. It’s not many places where you’ll find Jacoby Shaddix and Corpsegrinder guesting on the same album, and when asked if he sees this as a way to bring all metal fans together through their love of horror, Charnas replies, “for me it’s one of those things where I love the idea of doing stuff that’s unexpected. What other band is gonna do features with guys like that on the same album? For me, great horror films take you where you weren’t expecting to go, like killing Janet Leigh in the beginning of Psycho or Drew Barrymore at the beginning of Scream. Those are things that inspire me to take those left turns that you don’t expect.”

Even more so with The Silver Scream 2, ICE NINE KILLS can attract a wide array of metalheads with their style. One minute the band is crafting soaring melodies, and the next they’re delivering some of the most iconic and crushing mosh calls of the year. They are certainly a band that has so much potential to draw in horror fans who may not yet be metal fans, which turns the conversation to another era of horror that created a lot of metalheads in the process of delivering a new level of grit and gore: the early 2000s.

“One thing I think about all the time is how soundtracks like Freddy vs. Jason had KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and SLIPKNOT on it, and soundtracks like Scream 3 and The Crow both were full of rock and metal, as were a lot of soundtracks from that era,” says Charnas. “I don’t think that’s the way it works anymore, which is a shame for me as a metal fan, because a lot of those horror soundtracks are awesome. In modern stuff, they stuff they choose nowadays doesn’t really fit the aesthetic of the film. I would love to see more horror films embrace the roots of rock and roll and metal being synonymous with it.”

Charnas gives a shout out to the new film Halloween Kills which features GHOST on the soundtrack, and excitedly mentions a new film he had a cameo in that draws upon that era of metal and horror being entwined together. “I have a small cameo in a film coming up called The Retaliators, and it definitely is trying to bring that vibe back.” This leads to a further discussion on future projects. Would he be interested in exploring a new medium of horror beyond books and films? Perhaps an album about horror video games in the near future?

“We actually just did a collaboration with this game called New State, which is an expansion for PUBG, but I love the idea of doing more stuff in that hemisphere. I grew up playing some lesser known horror games like Nightmare Creatures on the Nintendo 64, so I think it’s something that would be a perfect match. The last few years I’ve really been obsessed with the Friday the 13th game.”

All of this really goes to show just how woven the web of dark media and music really is, and how this content all plays a huge role in shaping the identity of our community. And Spencer Charnas is tapped in, and it doesn’t appear he’s going to be letting all that fall by the wayside anytime soon, in fact, as long as metalheads love horror and horrorheads love metal, ICE NINE KILLS will be there to deliver the goods. And that smiling glint of recognition in the audience’s eyes when delivering a famous horror one liner before the pit erupts will never get old to Charnas.

“It’s fun for me and the audience, and I love the idea of continuing to expand on the lore. The source material is already so great, we just have to not fuck it up!”

The Silver Scream 2: Welcome To Horrorwood is out now via Fearless Records.

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