In 2011, if you were at all interested in punk rock, there’s a good chance you were looking in the direction of Denmark. New Brigade, the debut LP by four photogenic Copenhagen teenagers calling themselves Iceage, had found its way to the wider world, and it was nigh-on perfect: 24 minutes of gothic hardcore and surly bromance, like a yobbish Joy Division. It was the sort of album that can spark a record company gold rush, but as it turned out, Iceage’s immediate peers – groups such as Lower and Sexdrome – made bleak and brutal rock with no visible commercial ambition, just a few designs on destroying your eardrums. Great if you like that sort of thing, but “the next Iceage” was not forthcoming.
Four years later and a lot has changed. In 2015, Denmark is blooming. This week’s hopefuls are Yung, from the country’s second city Aarhus. Their debut EP Alter is a jangly indie-punk with a dash of Scandinavian noir. Watch them larking about on a chilly-looking dock in the video for lead track Nobody Cares, and you half-expect to see Sarah Lund cordoning off a crime scene in the background.
Still, dip into this new wave and it’s clear that this isn’t a movement of Iceage soundalikes. “Seeing Iceage get their music acknowledged has given musicians here a sort of calm confidence,” says Nis Bysted, who co-manages Iceage and runs the Copenhagen label Escho. “There is definitely less of this thought that you have to sound a certain way to be recognised.” The groups coming out of Copenhagen are certainly varied. Lower re-emerged last year with debut LP Seek Warmer Climes, a brittle, dramatic rock album with lyrics dwelling on vanity and the fragile male ego. Halshug – it translates as “decapitate” – have just released Blodets Bånd, an album of grimly effective crust-metal on Southern Lord; while Lust for Youth have blossomed from gloomy beginnings into Balearic synth-pop. The spirit is punk; the sound, often anything but.
Perhaps the band best equipped to follow in Iceage’s footsteps are Communions. Mixing youthful good looks with a jangly romance recalling the early Stone Roses, they’re an anomaly on the Posh Isolation label, which is as likely to release the industrial noise of Damien Dubrovnik, or sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard (who makes drones from the hums of nuclear plants), as it is wide-eyed indie.
Mind you, it’s worth noting that Iceage don’t sound like Iceage any more: their last album toyed with country rock, while The World Is Not Enough, the debut LP from Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s new group Marching Church sees the Iceage frontman recast himself as soul loverman, testing out his intoxicated croon over funky basslines and warm sax. Is it punk? God knows, but perhaps there’s a lesson here: Danish music is thriving because it’s about breaking moulds, not fitting them.
- Yung play at The Old Blue Last, London, 2 March and 100 Club, London, 3 March
