The Icarus Line: Penance Soiree : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Los Angeles quintet the icarus Line routinely terrify sensitive fans of the emo bands they are often booked alongside: One 2002 show at the Hard Rock Cafe in Austin was cut short when guitarist Aaron North (also co-founder of rabble-rousing Web site Buddyhead.com) broke into a display case containing one of Stevie Ray Vaughan's old guitars and drunkenly cavorted about with it before he was apprehended. Penance Soiree sounds as if it was recorded in equally chaotic circumstances (although it isn't a total train wreck like Mono, the band's first album). The Icarus Line seek to update the vicious sprawl of Detroit's hard-rock revolutionaries the MC5, but memorable tunes seldom emerge from the murk. "Up Against the Wall" swaggers mightily; "Spike Island" creeps stealthily like an outtake from Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power. Otherwise, Soiree seems to lack an essential ingredient: a cowering audience.