Review Summary: Ice Nine Kills finally embrace their love for horror when creating their most compelling release.
I have been infatuated with Ice Nine Kills since I first stumbled across their song “The Greatest Story Ever Told”. It was hectic in the right ways with incredible lyrics and displays of musicianship. When their third LP, The Predator Becomes The Prey, released, I have been solidified as a fan of the group. However, I try to listen to music very fairly and unbiased and will continue to do so for this review.
This is the second concept album Ice Nine Kills have released. Following Every Trick in the Book, where every track was crafted around a notable piece of literature, Ice Nine Kills finally took the plunge into making what they truly seem to be passionate about. The Silver Scream is a thirteen track epic where every track focuses on embodying the feel and emotion of the respective horror films they are written about. This includes films such as Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Jaws, Saw, Friday the 13th, and so on. They succeeded.
As stated, the band always enjoyed using their dark humor and chaotic writing styles so this album was a perfect canvas for them to illustrate their minds. The Silver Scream is an album that definitely requires several listens to understand what is going on. The record is filled with beauty, chaos, catchy moments, tongue-in-cheek composition and emotion. Every chorus on this record is infectiously catchy with song structures that feel to have a smoother flow than that of their previous records. JD mentioned how he is a fan of Fleshgod Apocalypse and the influence definitely translates into his writing. The orchestral arrangements are very present and incredibly massive. This blended with Ice Nine Kills’ aggressive in-your-face style of composition can leave you speechless and in awe. This is especially true with Spencer’s excellent lyricism guiding the way.
The album is produced by WZRD BLD who is most notable for his works with bands such as Motionless in White and Emmure. He made the low end powerful enough for you to feel in your chest but it’s still perfectly clean and quick. Not to mention the very impressive drum parts of the album. The guitar and bass tones were immaculate and blended perfectly well within the mix. Strings, brass, and woodwinds sounds very clean and destructive. Spencer’s vocals were layered with distortion and chorus to make him sound evil consistently throughout the album with a lot of body. There is a remixed version of Enjoy Your Slay which was better and worse than the original in many ways. It had really cool panning effects and a beefy low end but there were points were Spencer’s voice got distorted and de-essed to the point where it sounded like he had a lisp (which doesn’t exists in the original mix and doesn’t really make sense in context). Overall it’s more aggressive and a tad more massive but at the expense of clarity.
Samples here were used sparingly and tastefully. They really enhanced the feel along with recreating famous movie themes and moments. This is most notable in the track Rocking The Boat, which features their previous co-vocalist Jeremy Schwartz, and is filled with references to the band’s history. This brings me to my next point; there are a lot of guest appearances. None feel forced like I feared. Each felt like they had their place from duets to creating an immense atmosphere. My favorite guest appearance was at the grand finale of the album (which I don’t want to say much about because I don’t want to spoil the experience) which perfectly recreated the atmosphere of the movie being tackled.
My main gripe with this album is how at points it sounded like it was put through the Fearless Records funnel, which isn’t a bad thing but kinda takes a bit away from the uniqueness of the band. This is very apparent on the track SAVAGES which gave me strong vibes from the track Monster by Skillet. Otherwise, the album is well paced but at first I wanted to jump from the more rock oriented songs directly to the super aggressive tracks.
This is a very unique record and definitely deserves the recognition if not for musicality, for composition and production. It is very clear that this album had a lot of blood, sweat, and tears put into it. The album is very self-aware and the band had a lot of fun to it. This fun translated directly to the listener. If you don’t like this genre, it might not change your mind. However, if you enjoy heavier music or just want something fun and unique, whether or not you’re a fan of the band, check this out.
Favorite tracks: The American Nightmare, Thank God It's Friday, Stabbing in the Dark, Merry Axe-Mas, IT Is The End
