Genre: Gothic Rock / New Wave

01 In the Dark
02 In Ruins
03 Elements of Chance
04 Signals
05 Blind-spots
06 Imitation / Imagination
07 My Fever
08 Hypnagognia
09 In the Dark (Reprise)

Black Ice is largely a collaborative project between the musicians Stevenson Sedgwick (The Phantom Limbs, Factory of Angst) and Sköt B (Anal Kitties, The Phantom Limbs). Founded in 1999 by these two unique individuals, the music is based around acoustic instruments and samples, as well as an array of manipulated sounds that the two found throughout the band's now 8 years existence. Early in the band's career the music was instrumental and used largely for art performance in the San Fransisco Bay area. Miss Kel entered the picture on vocals in 2001, making Black Ice a project with a voice. This voice gave the music they created a brand new haunting atmosphere to give new acoustic instruments a new sea of sound to float upon, which were used in both conventional and unconventional ways (i.e. broken synthesizers and even water faucets!) In 2002 the band enlisted two new members to their ranks, Mister Brown and Melanie X, whom of which the latter left in 2006 only to be replaced this year by Mia Weeg, thus completing the modern day line-up. Besides Myopia, Black Ice currently have one album and one 10" EP under their belts.

First of all, vocalist Miss Kel is like a pseudo-gothic dream goddess to me. The pictures I have seen of her on the website are, well, wow...and what a haunting angelic voice to match. The music initally really reminds me of a more laid back Switchblade Symphony when they were actually good (aka Serpentine Gallery era). Miss Kel's voice does a great deal to match and surpass that of Tina Root's. The music isn't quite as blatantly electronic sounding though. It’s almost like a kind of treble shoegazer, ever increasing in atmosphere and power from the drums. There's no soft spot to this album at all, though some of the music may fool you into thinking that it’s more of a candy Goth style, it really is rather harsh for a female fronted band and thus has a great deal of emotion behind it.

I really found Black Ice's Myopia to be one of the more enjoyable gothic rock USA releases in a LONG time. Very few artists in our country have proved their worth to me in this realm in the past half decade or so and I'm not sure there will be more after this. It really is, unfortunately, a dying genre and I feel like the few bands that are still struggling to make it in the genre are wasting their breath, though Black Ice certainly does give hope to acts that are still pushing their art from this realm. It’s reminded to these groups to always be inventive and use new ideas towards traditional structures. You obviously can't coherently call yourself "gothic rock" unless your sound envelopes the music in some way shape or form, but you can always manipulate that sound greatly to fit your personality, and Black Ice has done this successfully. If you're looking for a new and fresh sounding gothic rock release, this is your best bet. Don't look at Metropolis, don't look at Projekt (though both are releasing great stuff currently). Start with this first Gothic Rock offering from Hungry Eye Records in New York.