Local buzz band Ice Palace already has drawn comparisons to the Decemberists, whose current album, The Crane Wife, was the No. 1 record in our Top 89 of 2006. Released last week on Speakerphone Records—a local label run by Darren Jackson of Kid Dakota and the Hopefuls—Ice Palace’s debut, Bright Leaf Left (not to be confused with Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left), is a beautifully melancholic and jittery nod to Northern rock, from the Pacific Northwest to the shores of Lake Superior.
The band name is sort of a misnomer, given the fact that the four-piece's rough-around-the-edges rock is burnished with Sarah Schneeberger’s somber and warm keys and Dan Greenwood's skittering, summer beats. (Adam Sorenson and Sam Needham provide vocals and guitar.) And though their sound is purely North Country, during these mid-March-like days the name “Ice Palace” tends to conjure images of winters in St.
Petersburg instead of St. Paul. Still, the band’s simultaneously frenetic and gloomy tune, “Nuance and Spark,” has lodged itself deep into our frozen hearts, making us melt faster than a drippy Winter Carnival sculpture.
We ask Sorenson and Schneeberger to answer our questions in two sentences or less.
The Buffering Stream: Was there anything you were obsessively listening to during the recording of this record?
Sorenson: I don't recall, but I did watch DVDs of The Fall, Led Zeppelin, Minor Threat, and the Who all in one night.
I hated Led Zeppelin but loved Minor Threat. Long live Kato hardcore.
Schneeberger: For a couple years off and on I've been obsessed with Blonde Redhead's Misery is a Butterfly and Black Heart Procession's The Spell.
What album or albums do you find yourself going back to repeatedly?
Sorenson: Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding, because each song is an incredibly well written story.
Schneeberger: I never tire of the first two A Silver Mount Zion records; they somehow never remind me of a specific time in my life, even though they should.
It’s a new year. Do you have any resolutions?
Sorenson: This year I plan to go to school.
Schneeeberger: [I am going to] stop making elaborate plans that never get carried out.
You have a song called "Hubris." Have you had an embarrassing display of hubris recently?
Or have you seen someone else display a sickening amount of hubris? Share!
Sorenson: The song is about how I felt at a time in my life, but right now I think the society we live in is generally displaying a lot of hubris.
And of course I think I'm right about this.
Ice Palace’s Bright Leaf Left (Speakerphone) is out now.
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