IkonGothic, Post-Punk and Darkwave from Australia.

The members of Ikon

Australian band Ikon has been creating its unique brand of wave music for eighteen years. Chris McCarter (vocals, guitar, programming) and Dino Molinaro (bass) began to write songs as high school students in 1988. In 1991, their original name Death in the Dark was replaced by IKON, and the band’s original singer was Michael Carrodus, who departed in 1997 after two albums. The duo was joined by guitarist Anthony Cornish in 2006 who fulfilled live duties until 2010.

Love, Hate and Sorrow, Ikon's sixth studio album was released in November 2009 and was three years in the making. While retaining the essence of influences such as Joy Division, early New Order and Death in June, Ikon has added further textures to the band’s style to produce its most accomplished full-length release. Love, Hate and Sorrow embraces melodic song structures without forgetting Ikon’s origins and the music that inspired the band to release its first album fifteen years ago. The response to the first two singles shows the new material's appeal to fans of old- and new-school wave music: Black Magazin named the first single ‘A Line on a Dark Day’ the second-best track of 2008 and music journalist Mick Mercer commented that these “pioneers in the Gothic genre” have produced a “pure dreamy wave cut” in the form of ‘Amongst the Runes’.

The band embarked on its seventh European tour in September 2009. Love, Hate and Sorrow saw Ikon return to their first European label, Apollyon (with whom they first signed with 1994), and also marks their signing to Vendetta Music in the United States. The band has also released its first music video clip for ‘A Line on a Dark Day’. The next single from the album will be ‘Torn Apart’, a slower track which, in its touching simplicity and raw emotion, marks a departure from the powerful guitar-based club tracks for which Ikon is renowned.

IKON has a prolific history of recordings (five EPs and seventeen singles in addition to albums) and plans to re-issue its first two albums, In the Shadow of the Angel and Flowers for the Gathering, in remastered and expanded format. This will make these pioneering releases available to fans who have just discovered the band and will reward those old enough to have bought the originals with a generous selection of bonus material from the band’s archives.

On the strength of a repertoire of old and new hits, Ikon has frequently toured Australia, Europe and the UK. IKON has played on the same bill as The Sisters of Mercy, H.I.M., Soft Cell, Death in June, London After Midnight and The Mission. IKON has performed at the Eurorock Festival in Belgium, the M’era Luna Festival in Hildesheim, Germany before an audience of more than 15,000 people and has also appeared twice at the world’s largest goth festival, Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig, Germany.

IKON has been called “the AC/DC of goth” for its long-term success creating and performing music that rocks internationally from all the way Down Under. In 2009, IKON returned to Europe, and delivered its best album yet, Love, Hate and Sorrow and its first video clip for the single 'A Line on a Dark Day'. 2010 began with IKON supporting H.I.M. in Melbourne and will see the release of a video single, covers compilation and live DVD.