Review: Ice Orgy — ‘III’

There’s no dawdling around Ice Orgy’s brand of hypnotic drone. The absolute attack and energies released from a modified autoharp to assorted electronic effects, emits a juggernaut of sound capable of knocking you out while you sweat for your life. The relatively short and aptly named III (third cassette from Ice Orgy on Unovis Workshop released February 11) is not for casusal music listeners looking for something to jog to.

For those unfamiliar with Ice Orgy’s (AKA Roy Styles) take on darkly rich, meditative noise, III feels like an ultra focused nod to rhythm and hidden, yet, malleable melodies. Styles’s first two albums, 2 and S/T, are lengthy and intensity submerged points of contact. While both pieces demand multiple listens, III is a better place for the uninitiated.

“Hibernation” journeys to distant, frozen landscapes with a scattered, magnetic start. The repetitive whirling is followed by an incredible jetliner take off. The sheer volume packed into this track is both lifting and debilitating. The reverberations are confining. Drones are stuffed into each other while whiffs of an unsettling ending doom near. The suspended tones and crash course it blazes is as beautiful as it is dangerous. “Monument” absorbs the previous track’s foundation and grooves, glitches and rings over the icy terrain. Its sound is arguably motorik and feels like a locomotive commanded straight into your path. The train misses you and your significant others, but the close call echoes in the distance as your heartbeat barely drops below 180. The final track, “Torpor,” is instantaneous and noise-packed. The beginning blurs lines and spins you into something dark and unrecognizable. On closer listens the strings played are inescapable. The dampened clicks register as offbeat footsteps, or worse off…the hooves of the Four Horsemen! The song trails gently into the night leaving nothing as it was.

The exquisite layout and depth of III is mind racking. In 16 short minutes, Styles orders a three-song battering ram of highly accessible manipulated sounds, effects, and haunting textures. Paired with a taboo-sounding project name, Ice Orgy can have anyone begging for a frost-coated abyss and loving it.

(You can listen to III by Ice Orgy below via Bandcamp and get more info about Ice Orgy on Facebook.)

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