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CD ReviewIkon – “Destroying the World to Save It”By Marcus Pan
The group puts out old fashioned gothic and darkwave tunage that might have been a bit more comfortable seeing the streets two decades or so ago during the Floodland era. By today's standards it comes off a bit flat; by the end of The Dying Crown on track two you're wondering when something cool is going to happen. I had a similar feeling from their labelmates Les Anges de la Nuit, only then it was in the electronica genre. Even Without Shadows is a good song, with talented playing, but lacks something to put it over the top. Maybe it's the banality of the lyrics, coming way too close to mopey pre-teen goth poetry for my tastes. "God has fallen from the sky, You can't hear the angels cry" as one boorish example (God Has Fallen From the Sky, track four), which with better lyrics might have been a great song with its guitar work and nice layout. I really dig the start of Psychic Vampire from a musical level. The sliding bass is groovy to the core, but the lyrics are once again boring. The operatic female vocals of Ashes of Blue is kind of nice. Actually just about all of Destroying the World to Save It is kind of nice...just nice. The Amerind opening of Slaughter whets your appetite for something new, but doesn't really deliver anything as it attempts to sustain itself as an instrumental. Path of the Unknown, which lies near the end of the album, is easily the best track throughout – one of the few that makes me move a bit due to its speedier rhythm and faster pace. Again I'm having writer's block. After a while the songs blend together into similar goth-rock tunage and kind of meld into a forgetful mash. Taken individually they're listenable certainly, but since we've had JD, SoM and all the others for so long I've lost interest in this genre unless it offers me something new I can chew on which Ikon doesn't. Extremely formulaic and almost predictable at times, it's not bad but doesn't hold one's interest in this day and age. Contact Information: Click to Buy!
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The opening Never Forgive
Never Forget is one of the strongest songs on the album from Australia's
three piece "gothic export," Ikon. The three players listed on the press kit
include vocalist/guitarist Chris McCarter, bassist Dino Molinary and
guitarist/vocalist Clifford Ennis. The CD jacket on the other hand lists four
more, so I'm a mite confused – three of the others are just vocalists, so
I'm assuming these are guest singers hanging out for a tune or two each.
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