Like a thunderclap, IAN is discharging their debut album on us. It is dazzling, vivid, and impassioned.
The East London quintet is comprised of musicians who have played together in different formations for the last twenty years. They have combined their creativity, compositional skill, and musicality, pushing the borders of Post Metal into new, intriguing realms on this debut. To try to encompass what this music encompasses I have to evoke the giants in the genre, such as Cult of Luna and Neurosis, as well as Post-Rock giants like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, in addition to the ferocity of Amenra. So, there I said it. And I am sure you will agree after just one listen.
Sometimes I am just blown away by the first couple of minutes of an album like this. I had to ask myself, is it possible that this remarkable music can keep me on my toes for all 46 minutes? Well, if you´re IAN, you can, and even more so. For me, this was an instant hit that just keeps on growing. As with Post Metal in general, it is not aggressive or furious as such. This is about melodies where layered structures create an all-encompassing atmosphere of vigorous music. In fact, it is much like composing and orchestrating classical music. Hence, IAN´s album should probably be described as a concerto in five movements.
The sonics are all-encompassing, envelop you and haul you into emotive surges, the heaving and sinking of the flow, and in a couple of tracks (”Manuel” and ”Selma”) lull you with the sense of a lullaby. This is largely thanks to the cello, which is a central instrument in IAN´s music. The cello might be, apart from the standard instrumentation of a metal-related band, the instrument that best fits in with its undulating heaviness. It adds extra dimensions both in depth and melody. The depth on this album is also added with the ever-present soft, bulging low-end bass that sometimes just lays the grooves and foundation, and leads the melody in other moments, like on ”Selma”: the low-end bass is pushing the melody as the other instruments extend and grow in crescendo-like fashion before it turns to a repetitive and staccato part that is heaving and sinking in a magnificent, mesmerizing wave.
The guitars´ sound on this album are torrential cascades that build enormous surges, swells, and waves. One reviewer once mused about a Cult of Luna album of how much powerful audio one can possible fit in on one album. A lot, he concluded. And we can conclude the same here. The guitars are, of course, distorted, but with very widespread and sweeping sonics. In the heavy distortion, the guitars´ sound is induced with whiffs of Noise and Drone elements to make it even more engaging, as on ”Not Erotic / Cop Film (End Credits)”. The guitars are used throughout the album not only as onslaughts of sounds, but also in the simmered-down parts as delicate sound effects with a whiff of Darkwave carrying the other instruments.
All in all, this is - if it is not clear yet - an utterly fascinating and emotive album with a dynamic flow that is driven by diverse drumming. The drums seem more to be used to lead the way through the cascades of sound than to keep the pace. Of course, the drummer does both, which is impressive. For example, in the track ”Fennel” where a guitar spreads over the heavy sonics with translucent effects as the drums hammer on, keeping the dynamics as the music surges and swells in the melodic soundscape it creates. The drums are on the heavy side of the tone scale, but also delicate, lightly tapping the edge of the snare drum as on ”Selma” when the main sound is the cello playing an elegant lullaby. But they can also push for grand discordant music bordering on dissonant on the longest and last track ”Not Erotic / Cop Film (End Credits)”, which also might be the pinnacle of the album´s tracks even if it’s difficult to judge…
And when the heaving sonics on the album are at their most massive, screeching vocals appear deep within the sounds, trying to fight their way through. And now, here we arrive at the band’s unique selling point: They have a lot of humor, are jovial (a look at the promo photos will tell you that, as well as the album´s title), and are not afraid to make a bit of fun of us, not taking themselves too seriously. In this kind of music, it is more often than not impossible to hear what the vocalist sings. But even so, also here, the vocals are an important part – an instrument in itself to fill the gaps. With tongue in cheek, the shrieking vocals sing lines like this: ” Yum yum yum I’m all full up / I’ve eaten all my dinner like a good boy” (from ”Manuel”) or ” Who’s your favourite Barnaby, it’s got to be Tom really hasn’t it? / But I prefer the second Barnaby’s wife, Joyce can do one / The real question is who’s the best sergeant? / Ben all day for me, but they are all good / Not Troy, too homophobic” (from ”Fennel”), or take this excerpt from ”Selma”: “They told me I should cut my nails. / I’d get on them nibbles / What do you think about that then.”</i>
In this, they remind me of the Grunge-Punk all-female Japanese band Shonen Knife, who are just as jovial, contrasting their raw and fast music with lyrics about candy, bubblegum, and banana chips. Even if the music that flows is thunderous and heavy, one is allowed to have fun, especially when you are as good as these two bands.
And here is their video for the song ”Manuel”, contrasting the lyrics, illustrating the music (in a way):
