Iron Slug – Unrepentant Grin (EP)

Self - Released

Release Date: 06.12.24

Running Time: 20:22

Score: 9/10

Greeting from the frozen North of England, where a bit of snow has fallen, and it is a little on the chilly side. Even Dark Juan has had to eschew the wearing of t shirts and shorts in favour of long trousers and a light cardigan. We already have had a bit of traffic chaos in the form of a car hitting a patch of black ice and ending up on its roof in the middle of a major thoroughfare. This, however, is normal for us up here and we have plenty of horses to lug things off roads if need be. In the South, they will need their big coats, and the kids will probably be off school because anything more than a millimetre of snow down South means absolute economic and physical chaos. Up North it means you get the tracking app for the gritters up and have a laugh at the names the public have come up with for them before driving your normal car on untreated roads and going down hills sideways.

Contrast this to the South, where Transport For London are trumpeting about their new bus routes which are electric and use an overhead system to power them. Until something like a bit of weather happens and then they won’t work.

Otherwise known as a trolleybus. A technology that was widespread in the 1920s throughout the UK and is basically a bus shaped tram.  Ah… the joys of modern innovation. Like the cargo ships that are going to supplement their internal combustion engines with wind power.

These were once known as fucking sails and the 1700s are knocking on the door wanting a word with us. Admiral Nelson is spinning so fast in his grave he’s halfway to Australia and there’s rumours that there is a small French dictator with a big nose and a mistress called Josephine is going to capture Spain…

The irony. The pernicious irony when wankers in suits try to posit that an old (and proved technology) is some kind of massive innovation and that they are at the cutting edge, when in fact they are rehashing old stiff and painting exciting new logos on it and making them out of space age and incredibly polluting exotic materials, thereby negating any benefit they might bring to the environment, but makes a useful contribution to a net 20% reduction in the fuel bill and therefore more profit/ less tax for the companies…

Now, last time I wrote about Gillingham, Kent-based Iron Slug there was some gentle mockery from my good self about them being from the South. There will be none of that this time, and this will be an entirely professional review about their superior Doom/ Sludge Metal hybrid and how it may or may not set my pleasure centres alight. I feel dirty just saying that about Southerners…

The Platter of Splatter ™ has now been called into action and the new four-track EP (“Unrepentant Grin”) from Iron Slug has been shoved into the relevant slot, with opening track ‘Depraved’ carrying on pretty much where the band left off on their debut EP, ‘Debauched and Bored’, being speedy in parts and grindingly slow in others, all secured the plaintive, yet pleasingly hairy-chested vocals of GuitarWill (Iron Slug boasts a brace of Wills, so they have been designated GuitarWill and BassWill. Drummer Tino there’s only one of so he’s safe. I will not be taking questions) which rise and fall above riffing so monolithic that the Garden of England is growing new mountain ranges just outside Deal and the populace are fleeing confused Northerners who have been magically displaced from the Pennines. This is all thanks to Iron Slug and the aural terrorists who are collectively known as Wills, BassWill having a chunky, earthquake inducing grunt in the backing vocal that counterpoints nicely with the clean and enigmatic vocals of GuitarWill.

The music itself is not concerned with aesthetic perfection and rather more bothered about making sure you’ll never find your face again. It is dirty and oily and rough and deliberately unfinished. It’s like the musical equivalent of a rat-look hotrod, all superficial rust and unwelded edges, yet the V8 at the heart of it throbs with well-tuned, immaculately looked after power. So it is with Iron Slug and the demented quest of GuitarWill and BassWill and Tino to level entire counties only with the power of Doom Metal.

This EP hits every goal Doom Metal aims at, as far as being heavier than several thousand shot-putters from the Soviet Union all called Olga and all hopped up on all kinds of steroids yet has a curious and impossible to dislike immediacy and accessibility that the likes of Saint Vitus and Crowbar sometimes lack. I’d categorise it as vibrant Doom. Which you might think is a contradiction in terms, but there’s real sense of enjoyment that pervades the record from ‘Depraved’, with its speedy, deliberately distracting opening bars that crash into slow burning fuzz heaven, to ‘Final Proposal’, which doesn’t, sadly, have any lyrics about masturbation, unlike their previous EP, where GuitarWill did in fact sing about loving himself.

I did not wish to probe that any further. I am still traumatised thinking about it.

If you like Doom or Sludge, I once more recommend Iron Slug to your attention. They offer some of the finest Doom Metal the UK has to offer which owes as much to Desert Rock as it does to Black Sabbath. The music has more grooves than a vinyl pressing plant, more riffs than a Joe Satriani convention and is never boring, even on the Doomier grinding bits of songs, and you can hear everything going on very cleanly. Tino’s drum work is masterful, and the mix of the record brings all his tinware very cleanly into the overall sound of the band and there’s a bit more maturity in the songwriting this time round, although they have lost none of their idiosyncratic power.

See, this is where Iron Slug confuse me. They don’t really bring any innovation to Doom and Sludge, but they are just that fucking good at what they do they make their music special and utterly impossible to dislike. The music is so good, and the band so irrepressible, that you look beyond the fairly limited musical horizons they have set themselves. Yet, I absolutely fucking love them.

Iron Slug are like a drug. You get stupendously high, but you always want more. I need a fucking album from you, Iron Slug, you bunch of girly hippie-locked Southern softies, otherwise I shall continue to taunt you about Kent’s total lack of resilience against anything but a slight breeze.

The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System awards Iron Slug 9/10, for a second meaty, beaty, big and bouncy EP and has deducted one mark for once more being denied an album by the TwatWills. It’s my scoring system and I’ll cry if I want to. Otherwise, Iron Slug are essential listening in the opinion of Dark Juan.

TRACKLISTING:

Depraved

My Eyes Learn

Truth Served

Final Proposal

LINE-UP:

Will B – Bass and backing vocals

Will R – Lead vocals and guitar

Tino - Drums

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