It’s official: Copenhagen’s Iceage will make their Mexican Summer debut on May 7 with Seek Shelter, their fifth album and first since 2018’s Beyondless. The Danish rockers have shared another preview of the album in the form of new single/video “Vendetta,” out now.
A decade after their debut record New Brigade’s release, Iceage are treading new territory with their latest, enlisting an outside producer for the very first time: Sonic Boom (aka Pete Kember of Spacemen 3), whom frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt characterizes (per a press release) as “a sparring partner, another wayward mind to bounce ideas off of (along with Shawn Everett, who mixed the record) to help shape the sound.” The album also features Casper Morilla Fernandez on guitar and The Lisboa Gospel Collective on backing vocals. Iceage spent 12 days recording Seek Shelter in Lisbon, Portugal—the longest they’ve worked on an album yet.
“Vendetta” is a menacing, yet danceable blues-rock track that moves in a fashion somewhere between swaggering and stumbling. “This ain’t no place for a sightseer,” Rønnenfelt warns, his impressionistic lyrics conjuring hazy images of transaction, exploitation and retribution. He swears vengeance over swaying shakers and drums, rowdy guitars and a monolithic synth hum that swells as “Vendetta” crescendoes, with discordant horns only sending it deeper into its dark downward spiral.
“Crime is the undercurrent that runs through everything. If you don’t see it, you’re not looking,” says Rønnenfelt in a statement. “In its invincible politics, it is the glue that binds it all together. ‘Vendetta’ is an impartial dance along the illicit lines of infraction.”
“Vendetta” is the second single from Seek Shelter after its closer “The Holding Hand,” which we highlighted as one of our favorite new songs after its release in early February. Iceage’s new track is accompanied by a shadowy visual starring Zlatko Buric; “We wanted it to be less 1:1 story and more short format collage-ish—like if you flick through a chapter in a book reading a bit here and there,” director Jonas Bang says of the dreamlike music video.
Watch Iceage’s “Vendetta” video below and find the details of their forthcoming album further down. While you’re at it, read Lizzie Manno’s Gateways essay on the band’s 2011 debut right here.
Seek Shelter Tracklist:
1. Shelter Song
2. High & Hurt
3. Love Kills Slowly
4. Vendetta
5. Drink Rain
6. Gold City
7. Dear Saint Cecilia
8. The Wider Powder Blue
9. The Holding Hand
Seek Shelter Album Art:
