A Goth Band's Journey From Screams to Whispers

New York Times

31-01-2025

When IC3PEAK released its last album, 'Kiss of Death,' the record had all the characteristics that had made the band into a boogeyman in Russia and led authorities to try and shut down its shows: death-obsessed lyrics, anti-state provocations and bloodcurdling screams.
But on the Russian duo's new album, 'Coming Home,' released Friday, the vibe has drastically changed. The harsh electro and heavy metal sounds are largely gone. Instead the band's vocalist, Nastya Kreslina, gently coos and whispers over melodic indie rock.
Kreslina said that there was a simple explanation for the shift: 'Everything in our lives has changed.'
Three years ago, Kreslina left Moscow just days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ever since, Kreslina and her bandmate, Nikolay Kostylev, have been coping with the emotional and creative fallout of the conflict.
Kreslina said she used to scream so that Russian listeners would notice her. Now, she said, a quiet voice felt like the only way to get 'noticed among all the screaming.'
Since leaving Russia, Kreslina has wandered between Paris, Los Angeles, Istanbul and Turin, Italy, among other cities; Kostylev now lives in Berlin. Kreslina has an apartment in Riga, Latvia, but she said it didn't feel like a permanent address. Since leaving Russia, she said, she still hadn't found a place that 'gave a feeling of home.'
Exiled Russian musicians often struggle to rebuild their careers abroad. Distanced from their domestic fan base and, in some cases, designated traitors by their government, many wind up playing small concerts to other émigrés.
This is particularly true of mainstream pop acts, but some alternative groups, like IC3PEAK and the deathcore band Slaughter to Prevail, have maintained or even grown in popularity from abroad, even as Russia's cultural cachet has nose-dived.
Kostylev said that, based on streaming data, he estimated that about 70 percent of IC3PEAK's fans live outside Russia, so going into exile had not had a significant financial impact. 'In a way we're lucky,' he said: 'We can have personal crises, because we have food on the table.'
The band's distinctive look was a key part of its international appeal, said Michael Idov, a former editor-in-chief of GQ Russia who lives in the United States. The band wears all-black with white face paint and its videos often look like horror movies, with zombies and monsters. Idov said those images appealed to social media users searching out unusual acts online, as well as music fans. 'They've always felt ripe for crossover,' he said.
During a joint interview with Kreslina in a restaurant on Riga's outskirts, Kostylev said the duo intended to maintain its bold fashion sense, even as it pivots to gentler music. For the 'Coming Home' album campaign, the duo dress as Goth angels in tracksuits.
Formed in 2013, when Kreslina and Kostylev were at college in Moscow, IC3PEAK had run-ins with Russian authorities from its early days. In 2018, it released 'Death No More' a track whose video features the band members setting themselves alight in front of a government building in Moscow while Kreslina sings 'All Russia is watching me / Let it all burn.'
Around that time, Kostylev said, police officers and security service agents tried to shut down many IC3PEAK shows. He and Kreslina were detained and spied on, Kostylev added. (The F.S.B. did not respond to a request for comment.)
At first, the pair found the attention 'fun,' Kostylev said, and every performance felt 'like showing the middle finger' to the authorities. But over time, paranoia grew, and Kostylev left Russia before the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine began because he had found the atmosphere stifling.
Nadya Tolokonnikova, a founder of the art collective Pussy Riot, who also had trouble with the Russian authorities and now also lives in exile, said she had first seen IC3PEAK in Moscow around 2018, at a gig with 'thousands of teenage girls dancing and screaming along.'
IC3PEAK was important as 'one of the first artists' in Russia to speak openly about state repression, Tolokonnikova added. 'They're more than a band,' she said: 'They build a world.'
'Coming Home' doesn't feature any openly political tracks, though there are subtle allusions to the war in Ukraine and the experience of exile. On 'Where is My Home?,' for instance, Kreslina said she was singing from the perspective of a soldier returning from a foreign battlefield to find that their country had changed. 'There is my home / But where is my home?' she sings.
Both Kreslina and Kostylev said they wanted to reach a Russian audience with the new album, as well as listeners in the West. They had agonized for months over whether to pull their music from streaming services in Russia, Kreslina added, but decided not to so they could maintain a connection with fans there who oppose the government.
What long-term IC3PEAK enthusiasts will make of the band's new direction, Kostylev seemed unsure. 'A lot of fans will find it confusing,' he said, 'but we can't do anything about that. We're just doing what we feel.'