There are few horror themes quite as evocative as that of Jaws. Dur dur. Duuuuur dur. Duuuuuuuuur dur. It’s enough to put you off paddling for life.
Enter Ice Nine Kills, a metalcore band whose latest record is a real horror show. The Boston band take regular influence from horror movies, but on ‘The Silver Scream’, they’ve thrown that to the forefront, each track taking influence from a classic movie of the genre. There’s tracks that take influence from IT, and others which interpolate Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Undoubtedly the most batshit (and possibly brilliant?) of the bunch is ‘Rocking The Boat’.
A track inspired by Spielberg’s blockbusting fin flick Jaws, it features numerous references to the 1975 classic. Eschewing (or, more likely, banned from using) actual samples from the movies, they cram in as many on-the-snout references as possible, from distress calls from the Orca (that’s the boat they hunt the shark on, fact fans) to Amity Island (that’s the island the shark descends upon). Brilliantly, in the build up to the breakdown, they even quote protagonist Chief Brody directly, lifting his line from – spoiler warning – when he blows that shark to smithereens: “SMILE YOU SON OF A BITCH.”
From there, things go full bonkers, the band lifting John Williams’ iconic, two-note Jaws theme music for the breakdown. DURRRR DUR. DURRRR DUR. DURRRRRR DUR. It’s enough to make you want to spin-kick a shark in the pit. Don’t do that, though. They have very sharp teeth.
It’s a track that gives a whole, gruesome new dimension to the concept of crowdsurfing. Probably best to keep your limbs to yourself, for this one.
Ice Nine Kills’ ‘The Silver Scream’ is out now via Fearless Records.