Remember... they own your scene...

Iron Monkey

9-13

Anyone with a passing interest in sludge metal know who Iron Monkey were. Their aggressive brand of metal, dark cryptic lyrics and gargled black bile spewed out as vocals have made an indelible mark on the UK underground metal scene. This along with the band's incredibly short tenure after the untimely death of twistedly charismatic front man Johnny Morrow has given the band a mystique that  helped garner their cult status. The band's reformation in January of this year was met with a considerable amount of excitement and intrigue but after they announced their comeback album, 9-13, the cracks began to show and the whole affair started to split opinion. For the most part the album delivers what we would expect from an Iron Monkey release. Opening track crown of electrodes kicks off the tone with  a hardcore flurry before breaking into the meat of the album. The album is full low end groovy riffs played on crunchy distorted guitars that jolt and lurch their way through each track. The tempo swings between a slow trudge and faster paced hardcore sections. The vocals are probably the most interesting aspect of the entire album which is a pleasant surprise. The distorted snarls and gargles of Jim Rushby are distinctly his own as he delivers confrontational lyrics alongside straight howls and unsettling laughter. However, it doesn’t take long to realise that Iron Monkey don’t have a great deal of anything new to show us. Only a few tracks into the album the songs become repetitive and very formulaic as certain patterns emerge. The unremarkable drums are one of the blandest parts of the album. This isn’t to say that it  doesn’t have its highlights. Track 7, The Rope, is one of the high points of the album as it rolls in straight off the previous track and feels like an extended uneasy breakdown with it’s slow trudge and unsettling vocals which are mostly lyric-less growls and the track title barked in pain. For the most part however the album really does have very little to show us. It’s not necessarily a bad album… Just an incredibly average album which in a lot of ways feels worse. The whole album has an air of complacency about it, like the bare minimum effort has been put in to make a passable sludge metal album. Unfortunately something that has also worked to the album’s detriment is the inability to leave any preconceptions behind when listening to it. Because of Iron Monkey’s “legendary” status for certain fans this album was never going to be an easy sell. The band's general arrogance on the lead to this album hasn’t done anything to ease any of this apprehension. Comments like “we own your scene” have managed to turn a lot of people cold to the idea of Iron Monkey comeback. When framed with miscalculations and missteps like this even the album cover has an air of cynicism about it. Unfortunately with a band like Iron Monkey, for better or for worse, the expectations were always going to be high. It’s near impossible to recapture lightning in a bottle and this album goes a long way to proving that.

5/10