“Ice V” (pronounced Ice Five) was the first single from King Gizzard’s twenty-first studio album Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava. The album was the first of three albums in October of that year and the third of five total. From day one the song was a crowd pleaser. From day one it was destined for greatness. Its funky feeling with flutes, saxophones and a ten minute runtime of non-stop jamming is highly infectious and capable of getting anyone dancing. The song takes its name from the water phase of the same name and details a meteorite from the moon Ganymede (nicknamed the “queen of ice”) that approaches Earth and brings human extinction through a new ice age.
“Ice V” was a result of the band’s jam sessions based on different scales with this song being based on the Dorian scale. A demo for the song was released as part of Good Music To Ensure Safe Abortion Access To All, a limited time fundraiser compilation. This version is a completely instrumental jam that runs a little under four minutes in length. The track ends with a reverb-drenched fade out.
The song’s surreal lyrics were written by Stu, Ambrose, Cook and Lucas while the music itself was written and played by Stu (guitar/flute/vocals/bass/organ/clavinet/percussion), Ambrose (keys/saxophone/percussion/vocals), Cavs (drums), Joey (bass/guitar/Farfisa), Cook (keyboards/guitar) and Lucas (bass/keyboards). On September 2nd, 2022, the band uploaded a teaser featuring reversed audio found in the song’s intro paired with footage of Joey. Fans opened up editing software and edited the clip to decode the audio. Some ended up guessing that the lyrics were phrases like “Ice Fire” and “Ice Burn.” That same day the band tweeted a sequence of five ice cubes, similar to the guessing game for the track listing of Omnium Gatherum.
A music video for the song directed by Danny Cohen was released on September 7th, 2022, the same day preorders started for the band’s three October albums. It features Joey dancing to the song throughout Hydra, Greece in various outfits at different locations and times. During the last minute of the video the footage freezes with small phrases on top before once again moving. When put together the phrases read “FEAR IS A FREEZING GULF THAT FLOWS LIKE LAVA THROUGH THE MARIANA TRENCH INTO YOUR BED BLOSSOMING INTO A NIGHTMARE PINNED UNDER THE WEIGHT OF GANYMEDE. FEAR IS A SERPENT THAT SCREAMS IN YOUR EAR FOREVER SAYING ‘YOU’RE NEXT AT THE ABATTOIR.’”
According to a Gizzymail the video was originally meant to be recorded on the band’s 2022 European Tour with the entire band but was changed after the tour was canceled. Instead Cohen focused on Joey alone on the island Hydra. Ambrose said “so about a month ago or so we had just made the tough decision to cancel our Europe tour back at the start of August when we remembered Danny Cohen had already flown over to Europe from Australia to meet us in a few days to film a clip for ‘Ice V’. Danny was going to come on the road with us for a few weeks and film a clip for the track over a few weeks. We were at the airport waiting for our flight to Prague to play the last show when we called Danny to tell him the news. Joe was still planning on staying in Europe whilst the rest of us were going to head home. Danny was very into Joe’s super euro look and decided he wanted to make the clip with only him. Luckily Joe stepped up [to] the plate and delivered an incredible performance of Billy Elliot 2 as he danced his way through Hydra, Greece over a few days.” While Danny Cohen found the video amusing, Joey had to be brave for its duration. “This was a big one for me. I had to abandon my ego and dance in public for 12 hours in the scorching hot Greek sun. Let’s just hope that the bride and groom of the 100 person wedding I performed in front of felt like I didn’t steal too much of their limelight.” In the previously mentioned Gizzymail, Ambrose named the video one of his favorites, describing it as “like some sort of bent episode of Getaway.”
“Ice V” was released on October 7th, 2022 as the second track on Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava.
The band had teased “Ice V,” such as on 2022-05-21, but the song debuted in its entirety during the band’s marathon show on 2022-10-02 at the William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley and would be played three other times before the release of Ice, Death… on the 7th. It would be a common song throughout 2022 and continued to be in regular rotation. The song has no set placement, either being a standalone song or the start/destination of a jam. Live versions are usually around the same length of the studio version give or take a few minutes, often in the ten to thirteen minute range. In an interview for SPIN Magazine Lucas said the song was his favorite to play because of its funkiness.