Iceage - For Love of Grace & the Hereafter Review
I know it is only halfway through 2026, but, I would like to nominate Iceage for Best Album Cover of the Year. It is absolutely beautiful. It perfectly captures the themes of this record: thick, bruised lines that at a quick glance appear to be random and abstract, but with a second glance clearly illustrate to people kissing deeply. The colors and the chaos feel like the violence that litters the lyrics, and through that violence, you find the love that exists in the lyrics, too.
Stellar opener "Ember" kicks off the album with what almost sounds like church bells ringing in the distance, giving way to a rocking, propelling guitar riff that pulls us through the rest of the song. Elias Rønnenfelt sings of wrecked ships, of violent rains, of what sounds like abandoning ship for the skies, maybe descending to the heavens after "One error, then you're fucking dead, boy." Is he talking to someone else, or is someone talking to him? Then, he gets to the chorus, which is one of my favorites on the entire record:
I love you in an ominous way
Are you willing to pay
Are you willing to break
With all that's layn before you
Before you're swept and breathless in the dirty ground
So many times
You've ran for dear life
But I caught you like an ember
Caught you like an ember falling
Caught you like an ember falling down
I love this so much. It is a perfect encapsulation of what are, in my mind, the big themes on the album; love and violence and the intersection between the two. "So many times / You've ran for dear life / But I caught you like an ember" is so sweet and tender, yet of course, you're buring yourself to save someone else, someone you love "in an ominious way," as if you know that this love is going to lead to some sort of disaster for yourself, but you do it anyway.
"Salve for Every Sore" depicts love as a cure for the consequences of violence. What sounds like a plucky banjo line over a marching snare drum leads us through the verse, into these cacophonous, miniature explosions of emotion over and over, as Rønnenfelt references Shakespeare ("Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg and seeks salvation") and conjures images of the Garden of Eden ("Maggot hidden in the apple / Soothes all the griefs I know, dulls my pain and othered woe"). It is discordant, it is beautiful, it is everything Iceage does so well. Again, Rønnenfelt shows off his skills at writing just the best choruses:
Oh, I, my little darling
I get the impression
You're a salve for every sore
Whoa-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh
A storm is a-roaring
And since heaven harbours envy for us
An opening in the midst
The sense of centre shifts
And you're that little thing I'm thinking of
The ship lost at shore imagery continues here, and I just can't help but love the way Rønnenfelt expresses affection on this album. In this instance, it's more like "us against the world" rather than "you're a fuck up and I'll catch you when you fall," and it feels a little more explicitly romantic in that way.
Love and violence continue to dance with each other on another standout track, "mother-of-pearl," which explores a different kind of love, and a less abstract kind of violence. To me, it sounds like he's singing to a family member or a friend, someone who's "knocked up and hormonal." The song is so upbeat, so rock'n'roll, you'd be forgiven if you missed the point of the story being told. A story of a "working girl" who's just realized she's pregnant, who is "not feeling foeticide," who's baby daddy was a heroin addict who's freshly out of prison. I know this is getting repetitive, but Rønnenfelt again shows us just how great he is at writing a catchy, meaningful chorus:
The mother of a pearl, quitting as a working girl
But it's heavy duty, it's heavy duty
Eating for two, there's a pearl inside of you
It will be yours truly, be yours truly
The love here is the love of narrator to "Mary" (another Biblical reference), who promises they will kill the baby daddy if he leaves and doesn't come back, who assures her that she'll be a good mother, which comes a bit tongue-in-cheek, but ultimately, I believe, is genuine, based on the final line, "we've been through Hell and back before." The love of a girl who, despite the fact that maybe she shouldn't keep this baby, wants to and will. The violence is self-explaintory. It's a complicated, heartfelt, hopefully, and devestating song all at once, and it's layers are hidden under this jaunty rock'n'roll banger that could play at a house party and no one would bat an eye.
I could go on like this for every single song on this record, as there is so much here to discuss and digest. It is so exciting to hear something so tight and dense and full of depths to be plumbed. Undoubtedly, this is one of the best records of the year, and I hope you give it a listen.