Ice Princess Keep Their Metal Old School—Like, Centuries Old

WHO: The Ice Princess (vocals), Conjured Phantoms (other instruments).

FOR FANS OF: Early Metallica, Judas Priest, Ghost B.C.

SOUNDS LIKE: What your uncle was blasting in his Firebird in 1982 when he was cruisin' the gut and wishing he had a girlfriend.

To get the backstory of Ice Princess, you have to go back a ways. To the year 1016, in fact.

According to band lore—the only history the group is willing to acknowledge—that is the year the evil wizard Scrotiam encased a Viking warrior princess in a spell that left her frozen in stasis for a thousand years. In 2016, the spell had finally run its course, and the Ice Princess cast off her frigid mantle onstage, breaking free and into song. She tells her tale the only way she knows how—in epic fantasy metal verse, backed by the four anonymous Phantoms she had conjured while still in her hibernation dreamstate.

The lead Phantom spoke to me in his Southeast Portland studio apartment, where he struggled to attach his iPhone to his stereo, claiming he's a Luddite who still prefers vinyl and finds the idea of downloading Skype abhorrent. He explains that he had initially recorded a thrashy B-side under the name Ice Princess on a split single with Alice Donut more than 20 years ago. Ever since, he's been plotting the concept, writing songs and awaiting his muse's thaw back to life.

"I really love metal that rocks," he says. "There's even some jazz that rocks, and I like that. But there's other aspects of metal that I like—for instance, the theatricality. The costumes, the smoke, and the props, all of that."

After getting the stereo to work, the Phantom cues up rough tracks from Ice Princess's upcoming debut, recorded in five days at Modest Mouse's deluxe Glacial Pace studio. The recording was engineered by Brandon Eggleston, and provides the canvas for the Ice Princess to tell her story of woe. The songs gallop, picks squeal and riffs chug in the hair-raising tone of classic metal. It doth sound huge.

"Over the years, I've amassed riffs and songs that were too metal to do in any band that I was in," the Phantom says. "So I decided to create a vehicle for that."

Plans are already in the works for a second album relating the band's heroic journey to the fortress of Scrotiam, with a third roughly conceptualized as the climactic battle against the nemesis himself. When asked about the future, the Phantom replies, "I feel like it could go forever."

SEE IT: Ice Princess plays Rontoms, 600 E Burnside St., with Ice Queens and Bleach Blonde Dudes, on Sunday, Feb. 5. 8:30 pm. Free. 21+.