Iron Lung - White Glove Test

"music" cover

Power violence's most forward thinking act are back with their ambitious new album entitled White Glove Test. Further pushing the band's ammonia soaked aesthetic and affinity for jangley Ginnesque guitars in a blender, Iron Lung, create a claustrophobic and energetic album. The album has three incarnations: a "music" version, which is guitars, vocals, drums; a "noise" version which runs the same length as the music version and sounds like a backdrop for a Lynch film; and then the "together" version in which both the "noise" and the "music" versions play simultaneously; creating, for me, the best version.

Moloch / Closure

While power violence bands and sludge bands have always gone hand in hand, stylistically they still maintained a strong gap between each other; speed for one and lack of speed for the other. This gap seems to be filling fast. I don't particularly care so much, maybe because I was still wearing diapers when Infest were pummeling people's faces in or maybe because I got into punk in my early teens in hopes of finding heavier and more powerful affairs. Regardless, Moloch's latest effort, a split with countrymen Closure showcases this gap's near end.

Closure plays the kind of stuff I stay up all night hunting blogs and webstores for, a type of power violence that just wants to play Dopesick. The guitars are wet concrete oozing through rusted pipes that eventually get dialed up into a vicious mixture of blast beats and faster vocals. Their side reminds me a lot of the nearly perfect Prodigal Son Brings Death by PV mainstays Mind Eraser. The production is a bit more genuine here and not as overblown and heavy as the aforementioned EP and the band's tendency to beatdown and ride a slower paces works perfectly as no one expects Moloch to hit anything more than a trot. A great match for their sludgy counterparts, Closure does more than I could've asked for having never heard them before.

While Moloch's trademark has been lurches of tortured vocals and painful amounts of feedback in between juggernaut riffs and crashing drums, the band decides to rock out a bit at a more constant and midpaced rhythm this time around. Starting with some tom play and a buzzing riff, Moloch's side eventually slows down  only to shoot out into this nifty syncopated beat and a noodly Southern inspired lick and of course back into comfortable dirge territory as things progress. Continuing the progression and incorporation of a more varied style that began with Possession, Moloch reign supreme on this excellent split.

Feast of Tentacles
2012