Iceburn is a jazz band. Albeit, a jazz band with their collective foot inexplicably impressing the distortion pedal. Aside from the obvious marketing dilemmas which must confront the band and their various record labels when the promotion wagon swings around, Iceburn's Firon makes no sense whatsoever. Which is why I like it. This is pure stop-and-go/surge- and-twitch jazz with a low mixed, mumbling vocal thrown in for no apparent reason. Like any good jazz ensemble, the members are often on their own musical tangents, wandering, improvising and probably playing completely different songs simultaneously. To call Iceburn (now known as The Iceburn Collective) a hardcore abberation would be like saying Draino stings the esophagal tract, and it doesn't seem as if hardcore can appreciate these guys. I wouldn't listen to Firon's meandering musical labrynths in the course of a normal day, but it's the sort of musical anomaly which must be appreciated simply by the awe which it elicits.

Review by Lee Steadham

Review date: 12/1998

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