ICHABOD (Let The Bad Times Roll) CD
I could start with an endless list of ICHABOD's influences, but certainly this isn't the best way to describe this highly interesting album. ICHABOD are a Boston-based band, and are aware of the old Punk/Hardcore history of their hometown, but they managed to combine it with elements of psychedelic, wave, noise, doom and more. The result is dark and twisted, and I needed more than one or two spins, to get into the complete album. This band isn't repeating well-known Sludge patterns, not only because of this psychedelic ambience, the claustrophobic sound surrounds. ICHABOD got not much in common with the so-called Sludge sub-genre. The music got a strong progressive edge, with a lot of chord changes, but everything is still very organic, and to make is more diverse with riff-driven up tempo numbers like in "Ceramic Bulldog."The different vocal-style, that are ranging from soft melodies to harsh agression outbreaks.
What I like about this band, is their intention to create a heavy intense free-floating sound, that's still emotional, with some uplifting moments. I think, they have done their job very well, although here are a few long-winding parts included, that aren't really convincing me. But apart of it, It's defenitely an intensive listening adventure, but be open-mind enough for ICHABOD. The best is, to do nothing else and give it three spins in one. Steve Austin of Today Is The Day has produced the album, what adds a special dirty low-end sickness to it. There's a photo inside the tasteful designed informative booklet, where the band is sitting around a smoking water-pipe, what's maybe one of the reasons for the Hawkwind-like parts in the sound. This album should be attractive for a lot of listeners out there, as long as you like it complex and intense. This album has been released last year 2002 on Root Sucker Records/Black Locust Entertainment.
(KK)