Let’s start this Ice Nine Kills studio album ranking list with an inquiry: How the hell did a former ska band, who eventually moonlit as a metalcore act in a formerly metalcore world as second of five on a typical mid-2010s yelling into microphones bill become one of the biggest bands in hard rock/metal, and eventually open for Metallica on a stadium tour? Here are our MySpace Top Eight explanations: Persistence, sweat, perseverance, timing, marketing, great songs, cleavers, and Boston. So sit back and enjoy these rankings.
6. Last Chance to Make Amends (2006)
If this truly is your favorite Ice Nine Kills LP, you have less than zero authority on anything in life, liberty, and the pursuit of sadness, AND no chance to make any sort of amends for such a gaffe that showcases that you learned absolutely nothing in study hall, and you’re not dancing tonight, tomorrow, or any night in the future. Basically, there’s a reason why this LP doesn’t show up on Spotify, and it’s likely not because the band is behind on TuneCore payments, cinder blocks, or thank you knots. Fun fact: It IS on Apple Music, so this LP isn’t THAT bad. Anyway, INK’s debut “Last Chance to Make Amends” sounds like a combination of “Deja Entendu,” Atreyu, and New England Clam Chowder in a nutritious way, even if Chowda is technically bad for you because of its high sodium/deplorable accent content.
Play it again: “Last Words”
Skip it: “Cinder Blocks and Thank You Knots”
5. The Predator Becomes the Prey (2014)
After revisiting the band’s six album catalog, Ice Nine Kills’ third studio album “The Predator Becomes the Prey” effectively acts as a gateway drug to the band’s current symphonic, gory, polarizing, and Presidential but not Biden or Trump direction, which truly sounds like it starts with its follow-up LP that came out nearly two full years later called “Every Trick in the Book,” but we’ll get to that fantastic/rockin’ album later. This record proves that the band is consistent in the best way, and contains eleven succinct, heavy, melodic, and fun, fun, fun tracks, which is a much creepier number now because of “Stranger Things,” Millie Bobby Brown, and not Drake, but we digress. Also, at just under forty minutes, this record isn’t too much of an investment in time if you haven’t tuned into it already… But you likely have if you’ve read this far!
Play it again: “The Fastest Way to a Girl’s Heart Is Through Her Ribcage”
Skip it: “What Lies Beneath”
4. Safe Is Just a Shadow (2010)
Re-recorded/re-released LPs sadly don’t count here or in any other publication that has both a heart of gold and a gentle yet firm grasp on reality, but INK definitely and happily made said version, uh, count. Yeah. Anyway, the band may have gotten better as musicians since 2010, as showcased seven years later on “Safe Is Just a Shadow (Re-Shadowed and Re-Recorded),” but the original effort via Red Blue Records, which was released not too long before they signed with the now defunct Outerloop Records referenced here simply known as “Safe Is Just a Shadow” (sans parentheses) is endearing, and is the band’s first good album in their catalog. So this is OUR future without evidence on fire: To put it cockily/emotionally, the sophomore slump isn’t a hard solid, wet liquid, smelly gaseous, or plasma screen TV manner to describe Ice Nine Kills.
Play it again: “The Greatest Story Ever Told”
Skip it: “Acceptance In The Waves”
3. Every Trick in the Book (2015)
The plot sickens with each tess-timony from the creepy, crawly, crazy, and cringe people in the attic, which may or may not include Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, a hat that is angry, a comedic pair of socks, a bloodbath, the British sci-fi film “Beyond,” the beast, and the harlot: “Every Trick in the Book” is the band’s fourth studio album, first record to highlight selected pieces of non-scary children’s books, best release since the group’s inception and before 2018, and first of three INK LPs so far to be solely released through Fearless Records. Even though “Star-Crossed Enemies” resembles Bring Me The Horizon’s hit “Drown” in various ways, star-crossed lovers like Romeo and Juliet but not Macbeth would likely blast this track as they descended into lunacy.
Play it again: “Communication Of The Cursed”
Skip it: “Star-Crossed Enemies”
2. The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood (2021)
As you know or claim to, sequels aren’t often better than their originals, but this one is pretty darn tootin’ close. “The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood,” INK’s sixth and most recent effort, is so, so, so close to perfect, and is the first LP from the band as an already pretty huge act in the scene and beyond; much respect/love/admiration/jealousy to the five-piece for getting to that point, and literally debuting at number eighteen on the Billboard 200. Like the album before it, there are a plethora of features here from heavy and hell bands like Papa Roach, Corpsegrinder, Atreyu, and Europe, and each respective artist brings their own element to the Ice Nine Kills formula, which works like a charm in a lucky and green box.
Play it again: “Hip To Be Scared” (featuring Jacoby Shaddix, formerly known as Coby Dick, Mr. Dick if you’re nasty, of Papa Roach)
Skip it: “F.L.Y.” (featuring Buddy Nielsen of Senses Fail)
1. The Silver Scream (2018)
This album might as well have been called the golden yell, as it is the Olympic medal winner here like Kurt Angle… It’s true! In addition to acquiring such a sterling, sound, savage, and sensual victory, but not the artist formerly known as Victory Records, prize, there are no “skip it” tracks on this LP, so you can stop and/or start bitching at us now. Anyway, whether you hate it or the antonym for “hate” said LP, it is impossible to deny that “The Silver Scream” is easily one of the more ambitious rock albums from the 2010s and beyond, and we know that that statement is far from a grave mistake that rocks your scandalous and bootylicious boat under the sea with that wuss, off base, dumb AF, and unhelpful Flounder from “The Lion King”. Screw that fish. To close this out, love bites… and so does INK!
Play it again: Everything from “The American Nightmare” to the bitter yet refined end
Skip it: An Australian Slumber That Is Comfy