Iron Monkey — Spleen & Goad
First off, some context: the second Iron Monkey album, Our Problem, is a sacred text for me; that album, and the 10” that followed, We’ve Learned Nothing, are both nigh perfect, and no other sludge metal gets close for me (with the exception of Eyehategod’s first album, and Noothgrush, who I’ve decided to move to the doom section of my brain). Iron Monkey were ferocious on record, and I was lucky enough to see them live before the sad passing of Johny Morrow, their singer. For better or worse, when the band reformed, with a mix of original members and new blood, to make the 9-13 album in 2017, I heard a few tracks and, undoubtedly swayed by my reverence for the Morrow years, quickly decided it didn’t match the legend in my head. Fast forward to 2024 and we have Spleen & Goad, and I’m pleased to say that whilst it doesn’t ascend the heights of Our Problem (and what does?), it’s a very solid album.
Whilst it operates in the same arena as the Morrow albums, Spleen & Goad has a path of its own; it’s still sludge, and still dynamic and rocking, but where Our Problem often spat out hyper-rock (rawk) riffs, Spleen… is more overtly hardcore orientated, with diseased traces of UK82 aggro. Saying that, there are moments - 'Rat Flag', for example - where the ghost of 70s hard rock is summoned to glorious effect, but generally the riffing is less garish, and closer to Noothgrush territory. Within 30 seconds of the first track, ‘Misanthropizer’, starting, it sounds like Iron Monkey, and it’s a tribute to the band and its legacy that the sound is so recognisable. To be precise, the only really intrusive differences with this incarnation of the band are the vocals, which do aim at Morrow’s blessed throat, and some of the guitar solos. The vocals are a mixed bag; they lack the sharpened precision of Morrow, but perhaps gain a little more thuggish aggro. Some of the guitar solos take risks, for this genre anyway, applying a bunch of effects and scrabbling out quite abstract soundy passages, things that would be quite at home on a Nightstick album - and the last track is itself a short piece of decrepit noise formed out of feedback and dying amps.
If I’m honest, I came to this with expectations of disappointment, but I haven’t been disappointed. There’s some great mid-tempo pummelling on 'Concrete Shock', a fantastic rotted Celtic Frost riff leading 'Off Switch', and 'The Gurges' is perhaps my highlight, a really dark, brooding piece of work that evokes the gutter dirt and desperation of Eyehategod. Onwards and downwards.