Tag Archives: for screening purposes only

#1226: Test Icicles – Snowball

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This song here’s the third and final one songwriter Rory Atwell conjured up to be included on For Screening Purposes Only, the only album made by dance-punk trio Test Icicles. As time goes on, there’s more chance of their name being forgotten. But it’s posts like mine that I hope will be found years from now for people to check them out. Short story from my POV, I didn’t think much of them when they around and I was younger. Then a few years passed, I rediscovered the album and found it was actually pretty good. ‘Snowball’ marks the start of a run in the LP that I consider to be solid, solid tunes.

I look at Spotify and, even though it’s not representative of all music listeners worldwide, I can’t look past that ‘Snowball’ is one of the least played songs on the album – only getting more plays than the interlude, closer ‘Party on Dudes’ and ‘What’s Michelle Like?’, which on original copies of the CD was a hidden track. I guess the song does take a while to get started. Atwell adopts an exaggerated vocal at points to sing his lyrics. Kinda like a bird squawking. It’s a thing he does in all his penned songs, but I’ve come to think of it as him portraying some sort of persona. And speaking of the lyrics, they’re not so much about anything but they conjure some good imagery. But it’s all of those reasons, plus the riffs and general energy that have always attracted me towards it.

I think it’s only taken me until writing this post to get to grips with the timing of the drum pattern and guitar that makes up the song’s introduction. The way those drums are played have never correlated with my sense of timing for the longest time. It does literally start on the first beat of the bar though, so as long as you count starting with ‘1’, then you’re good to go. The whole “band” drop in after a bit – band in quotes because the rhythm section is a processed one – and it’s then Atwell goes on to sing about a string of various situations and scenes, from a dog looking for a bone and a son of the East who can’t kill the Witch to the eventual snowball the song’s named after and a hurdy-gurdy that Atwell implores band member Sam Mehran to play before then telling him to turn it off in the choruses. It’s a strange song. I like it a lot.

#1185: Test Icicles – Sharks

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Maybe someday Test Icicles will get that unexpected burst of attention. Whether it through some strange trending sensation on TikTok, or a featured song in a very popular film or advert on the TV. Whatever happens. It would be nice. I remember initially being really turned off by the band when the first came round in 2005 with ‘Circle. Square. Triangle’. I was 10 at that point and thought it was a bunch of noise. But then my sister got the band’s album as a loan from a friend later on that year. I still didn’t get it. But, from what I remember, she did. And I particularly remember her spontaneously busting out lyrics from ‘Catch It!’ and ‘Sharks’, which as you can see, is today’s subject.

For Screening Purposes Only, Test Icicles’ one and only album, carried a name taken from the 1999 film Thicker Than Water, in which the phrase would appear onscreen whenever any violence happened. Never seen it, just going by what Wikipedia says. So in my head, I’m thinking that the three member must have been into films, they must have watched Jaws one day and, with a spark of inspiration, got to writing a new song. You won’t find official sources to back this up, so I’m going with this until that changes. ‘Sharks’, written by Sam Mehran or ‘Sam E Danger’ as he went by in the band, is about… well, sharks. Particularly how frightening they are. Maybe Mehran had a nightmare about being attacked by one. Though there might be a whole metaphor I’m missing out on here. All these theories I have, I mean, they sound plausible. They may be completely wrong too. Anyone out there, please correct me if so.

The track has a hidden introduction at the end of the song that precedes it on the album. A definitely Jaws-inspired motif played on a bass guitar is joined by a programmed drum pattern before launching into the official start of the song, a minor-key surf rock riff that properly gets the serotonin going. Mehran, Devonte Hynes and Rory Atwell bark out the track’s opening words, ‘Sharks. Sharks. Bite. Kill. Sharks.’ And a lot of screaming ensues. There’s plenty of that throughout actually. But things change musically from one section to the next. The surf-rock vibe switches out to a slower, more creeping part after what I guess you call the chorus. The song doesn’t really have one. But then after the sort of glitchy instrumental break, the initial riff comes in with a vengeance and brings it all to definitive close. Very impactful. The music’s better than the description.

#1069: Test Icicles – Pull the Lever

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Rory Attwell, or ‘Raary Decichells’ as he went by as a member of Test Icicles, would usually change his voice entirely whenever it came to delivering vocals for tracks he had written for the band. You’ll hear his normal speaking voice and probably think what he’s trying to achieve when listening to ‘Pull the Lever’ or ‘Dancing on Pegs’ for example. Think it’s fair that any first time listener would be thrown off. It’s only properly dawned on me how strange it may sound. But funnily enough, the three songs he contributed to Test Icicles’ For Screening Purposes Only album, and a B-side that was left off, are among my favourites to listen to generally. They’ll get their posts someday. I’ve covered one already, which has been linked. And today’s is ‘Pull the Lever’ the second track from that record.

There’s not much of a long-winded, melodramatic story about how much this song means to me that I can give you. I listened to that Test Icicles album in 2010 after sort of forgetting about them for a while after the band split in 2006. ‘Pull the Lever’ came on, and when that harmonised vocal came in on the first chorus I recall it becoming a favourite almost instantly. It sounded so nice in contrast to the busier verses. Those are led by this busy, quirky punk guitar riff (played by Sam Mehran) and blaring keyboard stabs (courtesy of Dev Hynes) while Attwell exclaims about nothing much in particular, but then suddenly transition into the more melodic choruses where Attwell calmly sings the refrain. The post-chorus occurs with Attwell returning to that barking-like vocal before an instrumental breaks takes us back to the second verse to repeat the rounds again.

When I talk about Attwell ranting about ‘nothing in particular’, I don’t mean to give the idea that you shouldn’t pay any attention to the words in the song. But even the band admit that they were an afterthought, and were very much so for the majority of the album. They do sound good alongside the music though. Sometimes it’s those kinds of lyrics (where not much thought has been put into them, but not so much that it doesn’t look like they’re not trying at all) that somehow work out the best in songs. I tend to be attracted to those types, anyway. I don’t think I have anything of value to add anymore, so below’s a video of the band performing the track live for the BBC. If you like what you hear, it’s good to see the band in action.

#1017: Test Icicles – Party on Dudes (Get Hype)

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How ironic that a track about getting ready for a party and building up excitement for it would be the final track on the one and only album that Test Icicles would release during the short, short time of the band’s existence. I was 10 years old when the video for ‘Circle. Square. Triangle’ was in rotation on the regular on MTV2. I was the same age when the band announced they were splitting up just under a year later. At the time, I was very much into them, so my reaction to that announcement was one of a large indifference.. But it was when I was 15 that I revisited For Screening Purposes Only for reasons that I’ve forgotten at this time, and found out how much fun the album was. Released in that dance-punk era of the ’00s, it very much handles ‘dance’ and ‘punk’ in its brash and noisy way.

I feel ‘Party on…’ is very much an account of lead vocalist Sam Mehran, witnessing the kids of 2005 feeling alive, being out in the town and knowing the places to go to have a good time. Under the pressure of being one of three vocalists and songwriters in a band, he can forget that feeling of unadulterated joy and freedom. He reminds himself that he’s just “gotta catch it”, with a nice reference to the track of the same name on the album. When he does, and the band perform, throwing out the energy to the crowd, everything comes together. He witnesses the fans waiting in anticipation to get into the venues they’re playing, people try and push in to the queues, and it seems like as soon as things get underway and the band do their thing, it’s time for everyone to leave and the band to move on to the next place. But no matter where they go, what matters is that a party’s gonna go down and things are gonna get wild.

And that was the final statement made on the band’s sole album. Well, that is if you don’t count the hidden track that followed after a few minutes of silence. That one’s a bit of a mess. From what I recall, the three members of the band really weren’t interested in the music they were doing, and weren’t expecting to create as much of a buzz as they did. They weren’t their separate ways and pursued their own individual careers. Rory Atwell became a producer, made remixes for a ton of bands and played in a few other bands of his own. Devonté Hynes became Lightspeed Champion before then evolving into Blood Orange. Mehran also forged out his own solo career under various aliases and was in the midst of making another project when he sadly passed away in July 2018 by suicide at the age of 31.

My iPod #238: Test Icicles – Dancing on Pegs

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Near the end of Test Icicles first and only album “For Screening Purposes Only” comes “Dancing on Pegs”, a track written by guitarist Rory Atwell.

Can’t say much about the song… It has no deep meaning to me, or in general. I just think it’s really cool. Atwell once claimed it is about a relationship, but you wouldn’t really tell from the gory imagery made by the lyrics. Chopping someone down at the knee and bloody raw hands aren’t really the things I would come up with if I was taken. It’s sinister in tone, but quite hilarious too.

It’s a very noisy track. Not like there’s a whole mesh of instruments smashed together so the lyrics are incomprehensible or anything. Everything’s a bit distorted, some cool riffs occur during the verses and it’s delivered at a very quick rate.

Listen to it if you’re interested.