Release date: 07-05-2004

2004 album from these L.A. firebrands is pressed onto double 165g virgin vinyl, packaged in a heavy gatefold sleeve, & includes one bonus track.

In the early 2000s, hardcore punk outfit the Icarus Line turned the ears of many a critic with its abrasive yet melodic sound. 2004's PENANCE SOIREE built on that reputation stoked by two EPs and a previous full-length, MONO.

The Icarus' second album was also their last before the departure of founding guitarist Aaron North. More ambitious than 2001's MONO and past EPs, PENANCE SOIREE sacrifices none of the band's abrasive reputation for both on- and off-stage mayhem. The Icarus Line sound bigger here, but the unrelenting gritty sound, and singer Joe Cardamone's sleazy-prurient vocals, keep it firmly in the gutter where belongs. They're at their best when going all out, as on "Party the Baby Off" and "Up Against the Wall."

Tracks:
01   Spit on It  
02   Up against the Wall   
03   On the Lash   
04   Caviar   
05   Spike Island  
06   Kiss Like Lizards 
07   White Devil  
08   Meatmaker
09   Add this track to your playlist Getting Bright at Night  
10   Big Sleep 
11   Virgin Velcro 
12   Party the Baby Off 
13   Seasick 

Sweet Nothing.Rolling Stone (p.90) - 3 stars out of 5 - "'Spike Island' creeps stealthily like an outtake from Iggy and the Stooges' RAW POWER."
Q (p.98) - 4 stars out of 5 - "Icarus Line have exhumed the mysterious shamanism of Jim Morrison, the attractive immortality of Iggy Pop and - if the exhortations on their sonically dense second album are anything to go by - take pleasure in workaday psychosis and bowel-loosening rock'n'roll."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.92) - 4 stars out of 5 - "The Icarus Line are proudly bloody-minded and self-destructive. Paradoxically, there's something so life-affirming and optimistic in their unassailable belief in ugly noise. Blood, drugs and evil flow through these tracks, but not an iota of cynicism."