Ikon - As Time Goes By (Remixed and Remastered)

Before Ikon became one of Australia’s longest-running gothic rock institutions, there was As Time Goes By: a document of a band still carving its identity from post-punk, atmosphere, and stark melancholy.

The material collected on As Time Goes By reaches back to Ikon’s formative early-1990s period, offering a window into the sound that preceded and surrounded their self-titled debut. Already present are the qualities that would define the band for decades: commanding basslines, spacious guitar, austere rhythms, and vocals steeped in isolation and romantic gloom.

There’s an unmistakable connection to the darker end of British post-punk and gothic rock, particularly the skeletal tension of Joy Division and the atmosphere of early Death Cult, but these recordings also reveal Ikon beginning to establish a character of their own. Songs unfold with a rawness that suits the material, favoring mood and repetition over elaborate production. Rather than the grander gothic rock Ikon would explore later, much of this material feels immediate, cold, and remarkably intimate.

As Time Goes By is particularly valuable because it doesn’t simply function as another studio album in the catalog. It reaches into the group’s early archive, preserving songs and versions that illuminate how Chris McCarter, Dino Molinaro and their collaborators developed the foundations of Ikon’s sound during the band’s earliest years.

This edition presents the material remixed and remastered, giving those early recordings renewed weight and clarity without erasing their original character. Bass and percussion hit with greater presence, guitars retain their shadowy expanse, and the stark atmosphere at the heart of the recordings remains intact.

For listeners who discovered Ikon through later records such as Flowers for the Gathering or This Quiet Earth, As Time Goes By offers a fascinating trip backward. For devotees of early gothic rock and post-punk, it stands equally well on its own: a stark portrait of Ikon before their sound had fully crystallized, already immersed in the darkness that would define everything to come.