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“Horrorcore icons.” – Kerrang!Like the undead slashers celebrated in their songs, ICE NINE KILLS return with The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood, a sequel of gruesome movie-sized proportion to their No. 1 Billboard Hard Rock Album, The Silver Scream. Welcome to Horrorwood carves out a fresh, bloody homage to the VHS celluloid classics that possessed singer Spencer Charnas at an early age, with a devilish new twist.
ICE NINE KILLS make music both timeless and timely, mixing metal, hardcore, and punk, with accessible power. New hard-rock-meets-horror anthems like “Hip to be Scared,” “Assault & Batteries,” and “Take Your Pick” demonstrate Spencer’s fascination with fright, obsession with pop culture, and his expertise with inescapably wicked melodic hooks and clever twists of phrase.
Imagine an album too violent and excessive for release, sickly sweet with crushing choruses and paralyzing breakdowns, put on a shelf by a suddenly fearful Fearless Records, lest it incriminates them. This is the world Welcome to Horrorwood imagines, one where Charnas is the chief suspect in his fiancé’s murder, and the body (ahem) of work he put on display serves as the damning evidence. And it’s the introduction of The Silence, a brand-new slasher for the ages of Spencer’s creation.
Drew Fulk (A Day To Remember, As I Lay Dying, Emmure) produced The Silver Scream and returned to collaborate on The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood. Album guests include Jacoby Shaddix (Papa Roach), George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher (Cannibal Corpse), Brandon Saller (Atreyu), Ryan Kirby (Fit For A King), and Buddy Nielsen (Senses Fail). Spencer’s longtime lyrical partner-in-crime, Steve Sopchak, and multi-instrumentalist Francesco Ferrini both return, as well.
The true-crime documentary-style narrative of “Opening Night…” quickly descends directly into the first proper song, “Welcome to Horrorwood,” which sets the stage for a new iconic slasher into the pop culture pantheon and preps a presentation of the “evidence” against Spencer. A box of videos procured from the singer’s home reveals a fresh batch of myths reminiscent of the cinematic muses of The Silver Scream, which may have this time inspired a gruesome “real life” homicide.
Each new song is slightly (and) slyly more subversive than the last, offering up immersive and escapist nightmare trips. Dan Sugarman (guitar/vocals), Ricky Armellino (guitar/vocals), Patrick Galante (drums), and Joe Occhuiti (bass/vocals) are the current co-conspirators behind Charnas, who founded the band as a teen in the early 2000s. Operating internationally as ICE NINE KILLS, the devious enterprise leaves an evidence locker’s worth of smiling faces and simmering, sinister thoughts everywhere they perform.
ICE NINE KILLS blur the boundaries between truth and fiction, skewering Hollywood in the process, stabbing with a satire to rival Patrick Bateman. “Stardom’s just an afterthought for all those stabbed in the backlot, piled up and left to rot,” the title track declares. “How’s this for an establishing shot?”
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