Four kids, 14 or 15 years of age, excitedly pack themselves into the tiny recording studio. The smallest of the group, and the only girl among them, scrambles over the piles of equipment, picking her way through the miles of cable that criss-cross the room, and starts to assemble her drum kit.

The boys meanwhile adjust their amps to full distortion and plug in their guitars and microphones. ‘Hey! Let’s jam!’ shouts someone and effortlessly, the band begins to play. Wasted Everyday segues seamlessly into Infernal Disturbance, a couple of their favorite tracks from their debut album The Monkeys Have Landed due for release late in 2004.

While they are all still at school, their youthful enthusiasm and passion for making music together, gives an extra spark of energy to their performance that belies their years. Influenced by the music of Metallica, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Iron Maiden and even Led Zeppelin, the 10 high energy tracks on the new CD are all original works, written by the kids themselves with Angelo providing the majority of the music and Dean most of the lyrics. But of course the music is greater then the sum of it’s parts and Lex’s thumping drumbeats together Griffs solid rhythm guitar combine with Angelo on lead guitar and Dean on vocals and bass to achieve the band’s highly individual sound.

Angelo,15, is the driving force behind the band, head shaved into a red snake of a Mohawk he’s ready at any moment to break into a complicated guitar solo worthy of Paul Gilbert. It was his first song Hunter/Killer that brought the band together when he met up with vocalist Dean. About 8 of the tracks on The Monkeys Have Landed were written by Angelo, who aside from being a fan of such guitarists as Joe Satriani, Paul Simon, and Eric Johnson, has a background in classical guitar and has recently taken up the trombone. He has a mean and enigmatic stage presence, growling his high volume vocals at the audience and turning his back for those virtuoso guitar solos.

Dean, also 15, is the other founding member of the band. With a history as singer and drummer in several previous bands, he not only began the search for other band members, but realizing the need for the coolest of bass players, took up the instrument himself. He may only have been playing bass for a year or so, but his incredibly fast slap pop lines give a real depth to such tracks as Devoured by Flames. Vocally Dean ranges with apparent ease from the demonic roar of Kamikaze to the haunting Cries From The Afterlife via the occasional falsetto effect in Infernal Disturbance. He is a natural to front the band and seems born to the job, looking as comfortable in front of the mike as he does relaxing in Starbucks after the gig. Dean’s lyrics deal with preoccupations common to many 15-year-old boys. The titles speak for themselves, Cries from the Afterlife, Kamikaze, Wasted Everyday, Devoured by Flames, Infernal Disturbance and so on.

A band without an awesomely solid drummer would get nowhere, and this the boys found in Lex who at 14 is the youngest member of the band. She may not fit your stereotype image, but Lex’s passion for drumming is evident the moment she picks up her sticks. Lex has been playing the drums since the age of seven when she decided she needed distinguish herself from her sisters more conventional choices of guitar and keyboards. There seems no end to the complicated rhythms she can conjure from her drum kit. Influenced by the powerful drummers Steve Jocz, Lars Ulrich, Travis Barker, Joey Jordison, Dave Grohl, John Bonham, John Dolmayan, Matt Sorum and others, Lex provides a thunderously complex range of beats as for example the opening bars of Kamikaze, and a firm foundation for the rest of the band to play against throughout the album. Sit Lex in front of a Drum kit, and all she wants to do is play!

Griff , 14, is the most recent recruit to the guitar section of the band, holding the music together while the others drift off into ever more flamboyant flights of fancy. His dedication to his music is evident in that he is rarely seen without a guitar nearby. Influenced not only by the metal bands of the others, plus such greats as System of a Down, Lost Prophets, and Limp Bizkit, Griff is a fan of guitarists Dave Baksh, Kirk Hammett and Michael Angelo as well as the all time greats of Jimmy Page and Paul Gilbert. He is equally happy playing the sensitive acoustic intro to Devoured as he is playing the thrashing riffs of Hunter/Killer and is more than capable of stepping in to play lead guitar when necessary, but there’s more to Griff than simply Rhythm Guitar. Griff wrote the seven-minute epic Infernal Disturbance and if you listen carefully, you will also hear him singing backing vocals on one or two tracks.

Together Shards of Ice are a pretty talented and enthusiastic bunch of kids who deserve some measure of success for their determination and achievement in putting together this album. Individually they may be good and continually improving, but in order for the band to succeed a large measure of teamwork is necessary, a secret ingredient that allows each member to achieve their own potential. It’s something they have learned during the production of this CD but what’s more, and most importantly to them, they love what they are doing, making and playing music of their own. You can expect to hear a lot more from these kids in the future.