IRON MONKEY
IRON MONKEY "Spleen and Goad"
By Dr. Abner Mality
This record is so full of bile and hatred, you wonder how the band members can keep from killing themselves...or each other. I'm a very pessimistic character myself...you'd almost have to be if you're going to be a writer these days...but IRON MONKEY is on a level sometimes tough to endure.
This is metal in its ultimate stripped down and hateful form...I personally don't believe you can get any more bestial than this. It's like the band listened to their last album "9-13" and figured it didn't go far enough. If you've not heard IRON MONKEY. imagine the sludgiest, most down-tuned guitar sound ever, add extra feedback and the vocals of a crackhead puking his guts out, and harness that to the simplest, most crushing riffs you could dream up. That is "Spleen and Goad" and it is a torture test that is nightmarish and effective in equal measure.
They get right to it with "Misanthropizer" and this is the perfect introduction. It's like EYEHATEGOD meets HELLHAMMER, but even more primitive. Is it death metal? Not in the conventional sense, but you just can't get heavier than this. Check out "Concrete Shock" and "Exlexed" for further proof. "Off Switch" and "The Gurges" crawl slowly along like a bum who's been beaten by a gang of thugs. The "singer", whoever he is, vomits forth mush-mouthed roars that are mostly indecipherable, although I did pick up the refrain "nicotine sweat" in "The Gurges". Repetition of riffs is taken to an almost unendurable extreme.
It ends with pure noise on "O D Rose". Man, this is HEAVY beyond heavy and hate-filled in a way that makes most black and death metal laughable. "Spleen and Goad" may be one of music's most extreme achievements...may God have mercy on us all!