Sound Club featured album: For Screening Purposes Only by Test Icicles

Test Icicles For Screening Purposes Only This is a cross-post from my Sound Club music club, where I regularly share an album for listening and discussion. Check out the club here. The mid-00s UK rock scene had become a relatively safe space. The rise of the Strokes and The White Stripes in the US had their own response on the other side of the Atlantic, but it had ultimately culminated in the concept of ‘landfill indie’. Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, and The Zutons knocked out rock songs with little new to say, and the likes of the Libertines were churning out a kind of garage punk that seemed more about the associated press narrative than the music. Onto that canvas arrived Test Icicles — a group that are almost certainly more influential than they are good. The band rejected much of the mod-ish stylings of their peers, and embraced something more unpredictable — a kind of youthful, unpredictable exuberance. Neon, aggressive, and a little rave. Where the Libertines embraced poeticism and…