siLLy puPPy The filthy as fuck sludge metal band from the ugly underbelly of the 90s that nobody in a million years thought would’ve arisen from the ashes due to the unfortunate passing of lead singer John Paul Morrow who passed away in 2002 leaving IRON MONKEY’s two 90s cult classics to stand on their own two feet but hey in the world of metal music one should expect the unexpected and even sacred cows sometimes find new a new form of life in an altered yet somewhat familiar form. While simmering in the sludgy underground, this 90s sludge metal band that followed in the footsteps of the Louisiana scene that found Acid Bath, Eyehategod and Grief forging a new ugly style of metal that chipped off strands of DNA from the world of stoner metal and doom metal and crafted a new ugly Frankenstein brother.

While not the first to engage in the rageful vitriol and distortion-fueled din that classic sludge metal rammed down your ear canals with impunity, IRON MONKEY was certainly one of the pinnacles of the hate fueled reverb-soaked sludgery that possibly caused Morrow’s death from choking on his own hate-filled vocal chords while screaming up a storm. Despite written off and left for dead, the MONKEY escaped captivity from whatever experimental lab facility locked them away and returned to the scene in 2017 with its comeback album “9-13” which found guitarist James David Luke Rushby (now simplified to simply Jim) accompanied by original guitarist Dean Paul James Berry (now truncated to Dean) who swapped out guitars for bass. With no viable replacement of the once great vocalist to be found, Jim simply stepped in and honed his own hateful bile spewing from his vocal chamber and called it good. With the addition of drummer Brigga, the MONKEY was back for the attack like Cesar planning an overthrow of humanity on The Planet of the Apes.

Following in the footsteps of the band’s 2017 comeback, SPLEEN & GOAD proves the resurrection was no one-off and although drummer Brigga has been replaced by Ze Big, this album that emerges seven years later very much sounds like “9-13” as IRON MONKEY left behind all those doom metal glacial moments of sustained feedback and oozing out effect of distortion of pain and focused more on the hardcore punk aspects that were in the band’s plans all along before the great implosion that left the MONKEY broken down and disbanded before a third album could ever emerge. Gone are all those smoke-filled stoner rock moments and also gone are the looming doomy passages that slink and slither like a serpent in the Garden of Eden. The new IRON MONKEY has the need for speed and that is exactly what it delivers with an adrenalized procession of downtuned sludge metal riffing sessions that offer a bit of boogie rock flamboyance to its simian swagger.

A modern day album with a retro throwback approach, SPLEEN & GOAD hosts nine tracks at 53 1/2 minutes and an incessant rampage through its battlefield stampede more focused on the quickened galloping pace of groove metal than the sludge on simmer of the past. The results vary as any veritable IRON MONKEY fan cherishes those classic moments that find the guitar sustain tweaking and freaking all over the place one of the band’s primary charms, lead vocalist Morrow’s unfathomable vocal rage excepted. The new IRON MONKEY in many ways sounds more like Amoebix or the 80s crust punk bands than it does its former self but then again the new IRON MONKEY is only half of the equation and any expectations of past endeavors should be firmly quashed. The new balls to the wall approach of IRON MONKEY 2.0 now finds as many albums under its belt as its original run but there’s little doubt this new rendition will ever eclipse the legendary status the original lineup has earned as one of 90s metal’s best kept secrets for so many decades.

The opening “Misanthropizer” pretty much sets the stage of quickened hardcore riffing frenzies with Rushby’s best Morrow imitation that comes close but delivers no cigar but then again taken on its own the new IRON MONKEY does not disappoint in its mostly Sabbath-free, stoner-free agenda either as the highly adrenalized agenda certainly offers a compelling filthy raw mix of primeval sludgery laced with the more rambunctious leanings of 90s alternative metal. The band retains an obnoxiousness that is guaranteed to piss off all but the true sludge fans out there and has lost none of the frenetic misanthropy as the album charges on like the band never left its sludge metal paradise and despite the mostly punk-fueled procession, occasional deviations do occur such as the rare Sabbath sounding track “The Gurges” charges forth and breaks up the monotony with angry stomps that would find Morrow’s harrowing approval. While i do wish the album was a bit more diverse in its approach, i cannot deny than i’m a sucker for this unbridled raging filth of a musical style and therefore soak it in like a sponge. Overall the classic IRON MONKEY is in no danger of being dethroned by the new but for anyone saying these guys never should’ve reunited misses the point of reviving classic sludge metal in a genre that seems to have gotten too progressive and experimental for its own good at times.

siLLy puPPy Following the grime of the trench pit sludge metal experience that was the 1997 self-titled debut, IRON MONKEY quickly followed with its punchy sophomore release simply titled OUR PROBLEM, a title that belies its caustic excesses that if played loudly in public would make it everyone’s problem! The band’s second offering has been referred to as the ultimate bar fight music with its vicious anger raging across its 45 minute tantrum induced time length. Once again inspired by the New Orleans scene despite hailing from Nottingham, England, IRON MONKEY shifted gears on OUR PROBLEM and added a more musical element, namely a bluesy Southern metal shuffling effect that gravitated more towards Acid Rain this time around rather than the excess torturous displays of pain and anguish as heard from Eyehategod.

Graced with a better production job this time around thus lifting the album out of the lo-fi claustrophobic swamps of the 8-track debut, OUR PROBLEM was a much more professional sounding album on the Earache label and found the band showered with rave reviews and favorable acceptance although i feel the debut’s lo-fi filth and grime approach were quite appropriate for this style of iconoclastic sludgery. Given the greater emphasis on simple rhythms and melodic shuffles, the reliance on extreme feedback and distortion from the bowels of hell, while still creeping in at strategic spots, was deemphasized for a more Sabbath / stoner metal / Souther metal emphasis thus making OUR PROBLEM a bigger hit with those attached to such musical requirements but in the process lost a lot of the evil as fuck characteristics that made the debut stand out amongst the competition. Despite the hype the band didn’t exactly become the next Alice In Chains and remained a cult favorite for a few more decades.

Despite the more groove oriented leanings, lead vocalist John Paul Morrow had lost none of his demonically possessed vocal style and screams up a storm across this album’s run while the twin guitar provide a sludgy wall of sound and amplification without interfering with the audible bass bantering. Of course the melodic touches also dictated the more favorable drumming practices rather than the savagery of the debut that simply called for the most extreme bombast wherever possible. Falling in line more with popular tastes of the era, OUR PROBLEM was much more raved about than the over-the-top debut which took depressive nascent sludge metal to its most execrable extremes. While lacking the diverse motifs that the debut offered, OUR PROBLEM’s songwriting oriented tracks did allow for the use of dynamic shifts with fast groove based sludgery ceding to slower guitar-free bass moves and doomy time outs from a rather quickened pace that gave the album a bit of an alternative metal meets grunge feel as the underpinning of the song structures.

Fortified with ample doses of feedback noise and excessive crushing riffs with the occasional squeals and other tricks of the trade, OUR PROBLEM is considered a major step up in terms of quality from the self-titled debut but it really depends on your perspective now, doesn’t it? Personally i actually prefer the less musically inclined and more noise-centered debut but that does not mean for a minute that i dislike OUR PROBLEM in any way. Both albums simply take on a different emphasis with this one being more in line with the tastes of the public. Unfortunately IRON MONKEY would encounter personal and band tensions which led to its implosion shortly after this album even though a new lineup was attempted but with the untimely passing of Johnny Morrow in 2002 it seemed the band’s chances of a comeback were nil. However to everyone’s surprise the band resurrected in 2017 and has released two new albums as the new IRON MONKEY thus making the new incarnation currently as productive as the first.

On a personal note, IRON MONKEY was my gateway drug into the greater world of sludge metal and totally by chance. I simply loved the grim artwork and took a chance and fell for its raw grime upon first listen. If you wish to purchase IRON MONKEY’s debut as well as OUIR PROBLEM,” the most highly recommended way is on the combo pack of the 2009 compilation “Our Problem / Iron Monkey” which features both albums in their entirely as well as several bonus tracks for each albums and well worth it because the bonus tracks are every bit as dynamic as the albums themselves. As far as i’m concerned, IRON MONKEY’s debut is the pinnacle of the most extreme expressions of 90s sludge metal and remains one of my faves in the since diversified subgenre that splintered off the hardcore punk and doom metal hybridization wagon way back in the 1980s. The bonus tracks are quite different from the album proper with the feedback and fuzz laden “Omozu (Wisdom of Choking)” sounding much more like the early drone metal of Washington’s Earth.

siLLy puPPy While sludge metal had been a totally American thing first emerging from the Washington state scene and then picked up and developed in the state of Louisiana, by the early 90s it was slowly trickling across the pond and picked up by bands looking for a way to escape the speed traps of the ever-increasing tempos of neoclassical and death metal which pretty much dictated the majority of metal styles of the early 90s. One of the first regions to pick up on the sludge scene was Nottingham, England, first with Fudge Tunnel and then followed by IRON MONKEY who released two excessively caustic yet well regarded albums in the latter half of the decade. While the band only existed for five years from 1994 - 1999 in the first run, founding members guitarist Jim Rushby and bassist / guitarist Steve Watson reformed the band in 2017.

With the original lineup of Justin Greaves (drums, ex-Bradworthy), Johnny Morrow (vocals), Jim Rushby (guitar, ex-Ironside, Wartorn), Steve Watson (guitar, ex-Cerebral Fix) and Doug Dalziel (bass, ex-Ironside), IRON MONKEY recorded its lo-fo self-titled debut on an eight track in 1996 before catching the attention of Earache records which released it as a bonafide album in 1997. Inspired by the heaviest and filthiest sludge metal bands that came before, IRON MONKEY was majorly influenced by not only Eyehategod, Crowbar, early Corrsion of Conformity and Grief but also adopted the sludge metal tendency of hybridizing doom metal into its heavily distorted cacophonous procession through slow cantankerous tracks that offered subject matter as bleak as the collage art on the album cover depicts.

Dripping in heavy sludge riffing with more distorted feedback than should be allowed by law, IRON MONKEY’s debut is a powerhouse of pure unadulterated sludge metal showcasing the style in its most raw and primeval form before the new strains of atmospheric sludge metal a la Cult of Luna and Isis steered it in a more more progressive direction. While the band’s second release “Our Problem” featured more grooves in the vein of stoner and Southern metal boogie rock, this debut eschews any sort of melodic underbelly and only exercises the most extreme form of sludgy metal riffing that offers Black Sabbath inspired doom with serious amplifier abuse with the album culminating in the heaviest display of feedback known to man on the closing moments of “Shrimp Fist.” While the original release featured only six tracks at about 38 minutes of playing time, the later releases featured a sludged out remaking of Black Sabbath’s classic “Cornucopia” which also offers one of the most extreme feedback fuzz outros ever.

In addition to the barbaric amplification that must’ve destroyed more than an amp or two, the highlight is the savage vocal display of John Paul Morrow whose violent screams are the lyrical equivalent of fingernails on chalkboards and the lo-fi production offers the same filthy murk that early black metal had utilized to their advantage. The slow undulating doom metal riffs alternate with faster mid-tempo sludgery in the vein of Eyehategod and Grief but despite the obvious slight degree of separation from the sludge metal acts that preceded, IRON MONKEY offered a more pungent and violent form of the musical style that still to this day sounds like the pinnacle of the heaviest form of sludge. The addition of the excess feedback that squeaks, squeals and shrieks randomly throughout the album’s run is like candy for extreme metal enthusiasts. The band’s debut is the real deal and the one i prefer most even though the sophomore release has its own distinct charm.

On a personal note, IRON MONKEY was my gateway drug into the greater world of sludge metal and totally by chance. I simply loved the grim artwork and took a chance and feel for its raw grime upon first listen. If you wish to purchase IRON MONKEY’s debut as well as “Our Problem,” the most highly recommended way is on the combo pack of the 2009 compilation “Our Problem / Iron Monkey” which features both albums in their entirely as well as several bonus tracks for each albums and well worth it because the bonus tracks are every bit as dynamic as the albums themselves. As far as i’m concerned, IRON MONKEY’s debut is the pinnacle of the most extreme expressions of 90s sludge metal and remains one of my faves in the since diversified subgenre that splintered off the hardcore punk and doom metal hybridization wagon way back in the 1980s.

siLLy puPPy Existing in the concrete jungles and unheard of for almost two decades, the Nottingham simians IRON MONKEY swing off their vines and onto the world’s stage once again. Having formed in the 90s when sludge metal was in its infancy, the band followed in the footsteps of Eyehategod, Acid Bath, Buzzov-en and Grief when they finally released their debut album in 1997. The band got their feet wet with their eponymous debut that displayed their primal ability to deliver the sludge metal treatment like the big boys with all the caustic fury and hypnotic distortionfests turned up to 11. After an initial positive response the sludge apes quickly pumped out their second release “Our Problem” which was not only met with critical acclaim but remains one of the hallmarks of late 90s sludge metal. As is too often the case, the band became plagued with personal and music industry disputes and soon the MONKEY go bye-bye leaving a mysterious void in the potential that seemed would never find a second life.

Having been almost forgotten as a mere footnote in the growing annals of metal history, IRON MONKEY has left the thick over-grown jungles and released an album of new material. Despite existing in a rather truncated history in their early stages, IRON MONKEY still had their share of lineup changes and with this resurrection there is no exception. This comeback was orchestrated by two of the original founding members: guitarists Jim Rushby and Steve Watson. This decision is somewhat of a gamble since original hardcore punk inspired vocalist Johnny Morrow surprisingly died in 2002. Also adding to this dubious reformation was that the original drummer John Greaves wasn’t invited to rejoin the new MONKEY spanking club. Undeterred, the band has reemerged as a mere trio with Rushby adding vocal duties to his resume and Watson trading in his guitar for bass. New to the mix and picking up the drumming duties is Scott Briggs who brings his hardcore punk sensibilities to the table from his stint with the crusty punkers Chaos U.K.

One of the most immediate head scratchers for those of us who accumulated IRON MONKEY’s mere two releases and the twofer comp release is that 9-13 uses the exact same album cover artwork as the 2-CD compilation “Our Problem / Iron Monkey” which is obviously going to cause great confusion and could possibly invoke a flurry of cursing in paragraphs for the uninitiated who happen to accidentally order the wrong product unknowingly. The product inside though is quite different than the two albums that precede it. This is the new IRON MONKEY that has grown out of the old. While incorporating the expected template of grinding sludge riffery and adrenaline fueled feedback frenzies all dressed up with misanthropic vocal tantrums, the band has certainly opted out of dirge doom drudgery and added a more hardcore punk infused energetic delivery that ultimately leads back to the days of such early birds like Discharge which is a welcome change since the early albums were lacking that extra ass burning drive that this one seems to have.

In fact, the opener “Crown Of Electrodes” misleads by insinuating that the band has gone hardcore and crust altogether. The following “OmegaMangler” does nothing to dispel that conclusion. Finally on the title track which is third on the queue list, the old IRON MONKEY begins to shine through as the punk infused drive yields to the distant sludgy jungle calls of the past with that unmistakable Sabbath-esque doom shuffle and high octane distortion cranked up for full pyroclastic feedback flows. On “Toadcrucifier - R.I.P.P.E.R” we’re treated to an extraordinary bout of feedback abuse before the energized bluesy sludge shuffle steals the limelight. “Destroyer” tears the roof off the joint as it delivers one of the most unrelenting and uncompromising heaviness of the band’s entire career and one that sounds like the ultimate crowd please in a live setting. Ditto for the following “Mortarhex.” “The Rope” is perhaps my favorite track of the lot as it delivers an instantly evil-as-fuck riff supplemented by Rushby’s more than adequate for the job vocal delivery. In fact, Rushby does an excellent job at replacing Morrow as he has perfect control over the gargling grunge and sludge mood setting management that this style of metal requires. “Doomsday Impulse Multiplier” continues almost by the numbers, the full sludge effect. “Moreland St. Hammervortex” takes a stab at creating a lengthy near ten minute closer guaranteed to leave a caustic acrid taste in your mouth with intended results delivered.

In the end, i understand why IRON MONKEY felt they had to leave the jungle and jump onto the world’s stage once again. As the internet allows older music to be exposed to a wider world audience, their first two albums have gained more recognition than they did at their time of release and there has always been a sense of unfulfilled destiny as the group mysteriously disbanded seemingly forever. Overall, 9-13 provides a platform for the two founders to uncork all that pent up sludgy rage that has been simmering for two decades and unleashes it in full metal fury and for once doesn’t sound overly derivative of early sludge masters Eyehategod or Acid Bath. Here they exude a volcanic explosive energetic release that in some ways blows away their 90s output. However, the whole thing still comes off as rather retro as countless sludge bands have long surpassed IRON MONKEY in their ability to perform their metal jungle gym routine. Despite the recycled album cover that is supplemented by recycled 90s sludge tricks of the past, these guys trimmed down to a trio do a surprisingly excellent performance of a nice modern punk infused retro sludge metal routine.

Although bands like Neurosis and Intronaut, for example, have long ago taken the sludge metal paradigm to more progressive pastures leaving the 1.0 version of the sub sounding a little one dimensional, IRON MONKEY nevertheless exudes a revitalized energy on their latest 9-13 despite not offering a great deal of variation in terms of compositional development. If old school feedback and fuzz coupled with crushing riffs augmented with the classic angry vocal effect is your poison, then 9-13 won’t disappoint but if you don’t exist in an anachronistic bubble of another era, then this one just misses the mark at finding a top tier status under the infinitely more sophisticated bar that modern metal bands have raised so high. In the end, 9-13 will ignite the pistons, grease the spark plugs and rev the engines and produce the full adrenaline effect that only this sort of raw, filthy and primal type of metal can induce, but after 18 years i would have expected some sort of upgrade in compositional development. As it stands 9-13 will have to serve as a decent but not outstanding slice of super heavy sludge metal from one of the underground classics of the 90s. Whether IRON MONKEY deserves a position in the 21st century as a contemporary sludge metal act remains to be seen, but i have to admit that i’m a sucker for this sort of primordial manic outburst of energy without the overly complex layering of effects at times.