All hail the mighty Nihiloceros for on their most recent long-player Dark Ice Balloons the band live up to their name perhaps like never before—poised on a razor’s edge between the rampaging power of a herd of rhinoceri and the more cerebral mentality of a nihilist whose concern with the “imminent evolutionary unraveling of the human condition and the absurdity of the end of world” (an actual quote from Nihiloceros’ Bandcamp page!) leads somewhat paradoxically to a playful, anarchic aesthetic thanks perhaps to all bets being off for salvation through any one absolutist belief system whether based around religion or capitalism or Scientology or whatever other overriding philosophy…
…with the only alter that’s bowed down to by Nihiloceros being the alter of the mighty guitar pedal with bass guitarist Alex Hoffman being a designer of custom pedals his own self which helps explain why his bass guitar sounds alternately like a Moog synthesizer, a braying donkey, or an actual bass and sure much the same balance was struck on Nihiloceros’ previous mid-length Self Destroy from 2021 which was very much a product of the preceding annus horribilis and whereas we described that record’s sound as “a concentrated paste of rocking-your-face-off” at the time…
…while Dark Ice Balloons is a bit more kaleidoscopic and dare we say a bit more playful too, both sonically and philosophically, with songs about what to do with a useless pair of wings (“Penguin Wings”) or what it’d be like being a Martian visiting the Wisconsin state fair and other Midwestern cultural institutions (“Martian Wisconsin,” which by the way front man Mike Borchardt originally hails from Chicago) and whereas Self Destroy was technically a (very non-pretentious and remarkably concise) concept album about “an average schlub facing down the apocalypse,” again quoting from our own review at the time, Dark Ice Balloons is more like a series of vignettes about learning to make do and finding a bit of amusement even in a world that’s winding down or at least in terms of being habitable for humanity at least (see the interview below for more about the “vignettes” approach)…
…with D.I.B. being something of a refinement and an expansion on Self Destroy, taking a figurative sledgehammer to its more monolithic predecessor and then sifting through the shards, the results being both at once more diverse and more austere in a way, with nary a guitar solo to heard across its eights tracks–thought many listener mistake solos played on Alex’s oft-octave-shifted bass for guitar–and mind this is very much a “guitar band” and while Dark Ice Balloons is hardly Nihiloceros’ Kid A, one could still make a pretty good S.A.T. type analogy quiz question in how this record represents both an evolution and continuation of the band’s sound…
DARK ICE BALLOONS :: SELF DESTROY
A) REVOLVER :: RUBBER SOUL
B) THE FRAGILE :: THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
C) THE RITE OF SPRING :: PETRUSHKA
D) OOPS!… I DID IT AGAIN :: …BABY ONE MORE TIME
…with the correct answer being E) “all of the above” obviously but hey we heard the SAT did away with those analogy questions years and years ago anyway which admittedly did seem like an odd basis for determining one’s future educational and life trajectory so likewise we’ll stop here with the pontificating and turn to the source itself instead seeing as we held a little impromptu interview with none other than Nihiloceros Mike himself at Main Drag Music (a music repair/vintage instrument shop with live music venue attached) so you can see and hear what’s he’s got to say re: Dark Ice Balloons in pure, unadulterated fashion which can be viewed below so let us go behind the music shall we…