The Icarus Line

It’s the sort of landscape you come to expect at punk gigs of any level, these days. A few young kids, mixed in with the uni brats and then the old-skool *punkers (yes, complete with the quaint mohicans). It barely took an opening of my left eye to know all this. I wasn’t wrong. The _post-hardcore scremo-core _scene is booming at the moment. Exeter’s finest examples, *Kids Near Water, know they are in there with the crew and your necessary comparisons need go no further than Hundred Reasons and Rival Schools played with a bit more lead. A bit of deviation would be highly significant in tonight’s set, but alas we see *none *of that. I’d love to call them bad; I’d love to call them mediocre, even; it seems that they are really just as good as anything else on show from that lengthily-titled aforementioned scene. Relatively mediocre: *Essentially *a damn good band.

I want to fuck tonight. The Icarus Line *play music for me - they play music to fuck to. Plucking influences from the punk scene like Mudhoney, *Black Flag, Operation Ivy et al, they have that bass that those of you who appreciate the sludge-core of Nirvana’s ‘Bleach’ will close your eyes to.

The forthcoming single, ‘Feed A Cat To Your Cobra’, violates your mind like the cat. They are young enough to do this to you with as clear a conscience as you wish. Nobody on stage numbers higher than 21. *Joey Cardamone *stalks centre stage with a sultry reprisal, oft seen in squalid clubs in which rubber is the uniform of choice. He screams. He bellows. The tousled bassist to his left *hammers *the frets at a speed that threatens to decelerate the world while guitars churn at random *furious *petals, unseen by all but the wielders themselves.

The band is garlanded in black. And that red necktie. I want to be wearing a thong. This music is fucking turning me on. You feel the songs building up inside you. They are turning me on. Everything about this band is low-slung. Who cares as much? Not them. No. Give a fuck…if you can afford it. All I have are these, suddenly crappy, grey checked boxers from M&S. I feel sexy. _This _is sexy.