It’s been five years since we heard from United Kingdom’s Iran Iran, but they surprised us this week with a mustache bristling new batch of tunes, and we couldn’t be more excited. Previously on Iran, Iran is filled, of course, with goofy, grinning song names to contrast the band’s reliably grizzly bear sized riffs. But the boys are not messing around this time. At least, not as much.
Tom Peter and Joe Garcia’s amazing production skills once again compliment what seems to be a somewhat heavier direction for the band, seemingly incubated around the time of Hard Boiled Infinite Crustacean. and Milk Time for Spiders EP. On Previously, even when things are downright silly, like the bizarre, angular guitar quacks in the background of “Form is Temporary, Shitness is Eternal,” there’s a nearly sense of foreboding.
Iran Iran have been loaded with riffs since the days they named their songs after celebrities (their Bandcamp bio literally says “We are the Riff Delivery System “), but you can sense a palpable increase in heat with the new record, catalyzing some seriously smoky new material.
Check out the spiciness of “Digital Bob Hoskins as Khrushchev” below for a good example. Like most of the tracks you’ll find here, it cruises steadily through a number of spiky, hot-cold switchbacks while maintaining their mischievous, cool-headed style.
Just listen to those dripping wet delay shards. Mysterious noises and effect pedal highlights appear throughout the record in a unique way, not relying on loops so much as clips of warped, colorized phrases. Again, the band has always done this to a degree, sometimes even to the effect of sonic jokes and jabs, but here they instill a sense of interpretive drama. For some, it’s an unexpected twist, but for most of us, it’s a welcome change in pace, and a hell of a way to return to the scene. We really hope it’s not another five years before we hear from them again.
Previously, on Iran Iran joins the band’s discography as one of their crowning achievements – there’s not a dull moment on it, and every second sounds like a million bucks. Even just the general sense of space in the first half of the record took us back to hearing Tom Peter’s production hyper jump on Alpha Male Tea Party‘s Infinite Stare. Don’t get us wrong, the man’s always been great at what he does, but we remember hearing the straight up passion he has and all of the time he put into that record, and you can hear that kind of love here as well. If you’re looking for a great time, er, some classic UK math rock with an edge, we couldn’t recommend Iran Iran’s latest record enough.
We seriously don’t know how you keep doing it, but we just wanted to say thank you to everyone for making music, and thank you for sharing it with us. What a ridiculous couple of years’ worth of insane new tunes. Coming up we’ve got stuff from Chat Pile, Paranoid Void, and more! Check out the Iran Iran discography here and shoot us a coffee over here. If you dare. Thanks for reading!