ICARIS: the group that tried to conquer the sun
Looking back on the rise, the fall, and the enduring mythology of the group that once burned brighter than the sun.
There was once a time when the world thought ICARIS’ light would never dim. Since their earliest days, people who saw them recognized the incandescent blaze within them.
Imagine this: seven wide-eyed teenagers donned in an odd mix and match of cheap pieces of clothing, all trembling and bursting with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. They smile for their audience of twenty — a few of which are family members, friends, and staff. And, when asked by a gracious interviewer what they wanted to achieve as a new and risky idol band, the leader — straight shoulders, clenched fists, steady voice—declared, “We want to conquer the sun.”
Ridiculous. Audacious. Icarian. And yet when they performed their debut title track, “Dive” — with its bold and youthful chants of being “born for the burning light” and finally facing the sunrise after spending their whole lives in the night — the handful of strangers in the crowd simply knew. These were not ordinary teenagers chasing an impossible dream only to burn themselves out in the process. These were seven teenagers carrying their own furious, ferocious little suns, and they were, without a shred of a doubt, one day going to conquer the sun.
The rest of the First Light trilogy — Soar and Burn — continue their tales of their quest to reach the sun, to burn brighter than the sun. While real-world events did not exactly mirror these lyrics — “Burn” has a famous lyric of ‘dancing with the sun and we’re here to stay’ but at that time, they were barely selling half of their small theater venues for their very first tour — the members believed their end goal so much that it felt like they did achieve their goals. There was a confident, cocky look to them whenever they performed, a surety in their movement and their lyrics. It was difficult to ignore.
And somehow, those delusions turned into reality when the now legendary video of one of the members — nicknamed Sparky by the media because they lit the blaze that was ICARIS — dancing “Burn” went viral on YouTube. Audiences, craving a new era of idol bands and celebrities to obsess over, desperately looked for more. Previous performance videos were shared everywhere, Tumblr fan accounts popped up to share GIF-style recounting of their content, and the company’s decision to give them weekly vlog uploads and a seasonal variety show quickly paid off as episodes began racking up millions of views. The small but terrible fandom called Solace spread these clips — funny, played up arguments in their variety show, shipping fuel from their vlogs, clipped livestream moments — and within weeks, ICARIS was the talk of the town. They were just so lovable, so real and unbothered by the usual expectations on celebrities and idols. They were authentic in every way — from their lyrics to the way they’d speak to fans. At the heart of it all, they felt like seven friends who had somehow stumbled into becoming idols. The last stops of their First Light tour sold out quite quickly afterward and the reviews couldn’t stop singing praises about them — it wasn’t just Sparky who performed like that, it was everyone. These people were the real deal. They were everything the entertainment industry was missing — truthful, talented, tenacious.
This was only the beginning for our seven suns. Their next trilogy — Golden Hour, which consisted of albums Heatwave, Mirage, and Fever — marked their most emotional era yet, an era of some of their highest of highs and some of their lowest of lows. Solaces always say this was their hungriest era. They were quickly becoming the world’s newest obsession, and they still weren’t content. They broke records that had remained untouched for decades. They were on every billboard on every highway in every major city in the world. They were inescapable; they were inevitable. They got their very first Grammy nomination for their Mirage album and were selling out stadiums for their tour. But fame that big came with its own price to pay — a vicious, endless wave of hatred and criticism from people who decided they did not deserve any of what they had. Every conversation was nitpicked, every unflattering angle was spread around, every voice crack was “criticized” (heavy on the quotation marks) to death. The rumors piled up — this member was dating so-and-so, they didn’t really like each other, they were horrible people who burned babies weekly as a deal with the devil for their popularity and success. On top of that, they called themselves idols, which made a few people who already looked down on idols even crueler.
And what did ICARIS do? They released “Fever”, the ender of their second trilogy, and proudly declared that they did not care — they had “swallowed the sun” and it burned hotter inside them than the hate they so relentlessly received. To top it off, or perhaps to prove it, they spent their Golden Hour tour just… going crazy. Close to four hours of nonstop dancing, singing, and letting loose. Some people expressed their worries — at times, it genuinely seemed like the members were dying on stage — but they finished the tour with delirious smiles on their faces and newfound respect from even some of their biggest critics. They had survived one of the biggest hate trains in the entertainment industry through sheer will, passion for the art, and love for each other and their fans.
Their last trilogy — Crimson Tide, which featured albums Sunset, Campfire, and Ashes — was the raw truth under all their bold declarations. It is their most truthful — most uncomfortable — era and the one that marked the end of their careers. This was when they went from idols to true artists in the eyes of the public — they were human beings who were brave enough to share their most intimate thoughts in their songs and in their interviews. Critics to this day claim their Ashes album is one of the best albums in recent times, citing the bruisingly bare lyrics and the hauntingly hollow sound of most of the songs as its strongest points. Looking back, there were moments during the final trilogy where the members seemed exhausted in ways Solaces struggled to explain, but no one truly believed the group was in any danger of ending. If anything, the members seemed more devoted to one another than ever. Which is why no one truly expected what happened during the final encore concert of their Crimson Tide tour. When the members stood on stage with solemn expressions and livestreamed their closing remarks across all their social media accounts, few viewers were prepared to hear them announce an indefinite hiatus. And yet, still, true Solaces weren’t truly scared of the hiatus lasting — in fact, most expressed their relief that the members, who’d run toward the sun tirelessly for the last six and a half years, were finally getting their well-deserved rest.
To this day, I believe they never truly wanted to end. But tragedy struck a few months after their hiatus announcement and their youngest member perished in a house fire. I struggle to write more about this — which perhaps explains the abruptness of the sentence before this — so I will instead skip ahead to the part where, months later, Aurora Entertainment released a single announcement on their social media accounts that ICARIS would cease all group activities, effectively disbanding the band. They posted this on the company’s account, leaving the the ICARIS Twitter account frozen in time. Its final post remained a retweet from the youngest’ last message from the group’s informal fan-facing account — a space they had once used to speak more freely with Solaces. It was a heartfelt message to the fans and to the members thanking them for the years sent together, ending with excitement over the “inevitable reunion”.
Over time, ICARIS became less of a group and more of a cultural ghost. Their music remained unavoidable — overplayed in karaoke rooms, covered by rookies, mentioned routinely by people who “grew up with them” — even as the members themselves drifted into vastly different lives. Some stayed in the spotlight and thrived in solo careers, others chose to go back to being private citizens and take back the normal life their job had stolen from them. None of them ever mentioned ICARIS or the other members at length ever again, deftly avoiding questions with polite responses before eventually ignoring them altogether. And as the years crawled by with not a single public interaction between the members even though they still drifted in similar circles — most of them still had shares in Aurora Entertainment and the soloists still released music under this same company — hope for a reunion had slowly… burned out.
Six years later, on a seemingly ordinary Wednesday, Aurora Entertainment revived the ICARIS Twitter account and announced Ember Dawn, a one-time reunion album and a world tour to commemorate their 15th anniversary and to finally formally close off this chapter of their lives. A documentary series will cover all the events of this reunion — from the planning process to their last encore — with members rumored to speak about their seven years of ICARIS in greater depth than ever before. ICARIS had always released documentary series per trilogy. Their first, Sunborn, chronicled their pre-debut days and their under-appreciated First Light era. The second, Sundrunk, covered their highly-controversial Golden Hour era. And the final one, Sunfall, was released after the group’s disbandment. Each consisted of eight episodes, forming an unflinching portrait of their lives as idols, and as mythologized figures in the public’s eyes. Solaces are expecting this next documentary, titled Sunbound, to be just as devastating.
This project marks the first time the members will appear together publicly in eight years. Reactions online have ranged from excitement to apprehension, particularly among fans unsettled by the idea of re-“meeting” a “new” ICARIS. Fifteen years after the group first vowed to conquer the sun, the question returns — just who is ICARIS? And will we ever truly know them?
