Iron Slug – Debauched and Bored EP
Iron Slug – Debauched and Bored EP
Self-Released
Release Date: 14/05/24
Running Time: 15:22
Review by Dark Juan
9/10
It is Friday afternoon in Crow Cottage and Dark Juan is reclining, Smellhounds about his person, and contemplating whether he should have a lovely orange flavoured gin, and also considering how he can annoy Rory Bentley today. I mean the boy likes Limp Bizkit. Clearly, he’s a ‘not right’ and needs some re-educating about just how amazing Kittie and Static-X are, if he’s as into Nu-Metal as he says he is.
I will not be taking questions from the floor, thank you. You can be reassured by my assertions on this matter.
As I really should be completing Unit 512 of my NVQ and I am wildly and enthusiastically procrastinating instead, I have decided to bring the Platter of Splatter™ out into the light, releasing it temporarily from the dank chamber it normally resides in, so it can be of service in playing a three-track EP from Gillingham, Kent’s Iron Slug. Immediately, Dark Juan wishes to know whether this trio of Southern jessies are Men of Kent or Kentish Men. Apparently, there is a difference. Dark Juan also wonders whether they tour the Garden of England picking hops in the season, and whether the well-heeled young gentlemen take the Mercedes or the Range Rover when they go to play live, or whether Cholmondley the butler does the driving. Being as Dark Juan drives the most beat up of ancient VW’s and has a somewhat skewed view of the Southern counties, Iron Slug are now (in my imagination, anyway) fabulously wealthy young men who play music for fun when they aren’t playing the stock market and buying Porsches and holiday cottages in Wales with their egregiously large bonuses. Where the likes of Iselder will promptly burn them down.
Obviously, and I shouldn’t really have to say this but there are a lot of people who seem to lack a sense of humour these days, Dark Juan’s tongue is firmly in his cheek and he is only taking the opportunity to have a good-natured pop at the Iron Slug personnel because he’s from the North and frankly it’s a British tradition for the rough, honest, hardy Northerners to have a bash at the soft, gentle, wearing-big-coats-in-April Southerners. And vice versa. Britain runs on piss-taking.
No-one is safe. Not even the Ever-Metal Brazilian contingent of Mauro, Victor and Wallace, who have been left wondering just what the fucking DEAL is with Frank Sidebottom, who has inexplicably ended up on the EM review list. You try explaining the entertainment value of an incredibly gauche man wearing a giant papier-mâché head and speaking in a bastardised Manchester accent to astonished and slightly panicked Brazilian people, even ones who have been inoculated against the robust and frequently insulting sense of humour that Brits have.
It isn’t really possible.
Anyway, Iron Slug are from Gillingham in Kent and therefore Dark Juan expects them to be all shit and flabby and posh, because Dark Juan is from the grimmest of mill towns in Yorkshire and the sunlit hinterlands of the South are wealthy and gentle by comparison. Even Folkestone. And Dover. Nevertheless, soft and flabby because Kent.
Guess what?
They aren’t.
This plays havoc with the reams of well-used Southern-ist jokes that Dark Juan had lined up to thoroughly bash Iron Slug with. Botheration.
“Debauched and Bored” is the name of this surprisingly taut and tight three-track EP and opening cut ‘Beauty Left In Woods’ is causing some excitement in the trouser area of Dark Juan, as well as many people on Spotify, as their less-is-more Sludge / Doom Metal hybrid is garnering them some well earned attention from the fans. However, they have a Will on vocals and guitar and a Will on bass, which is not convenient for reviewers which immediately knocks five points off their score as now they are going to have to be known as GuitarWill and BassWill for the duration of the review. That’ll teach them to have the same name through no fault of their own. TwatWills, the pair of them.
‘Beauty Left In Woods’ is a solid granite song. A deceptively simple sub-Sabbathian riff is left to breathe and the bass thunders pleasingly under it, and GuitarWill’s voice fits the music perfectly, his plaintive wail soaring over the storm and thunder of the music. It doesn’t suffer from the usual problem of Doom, where the central riff goes on for three hours before the vocalist decides to put down his blunt and actually do a bit of graft. His voice reminds Dark Juan of a less gravelly Jon Oliva. GuitarWill and BassWill slow down the song in the middle part and the end of the song, but the groove is easily maintained throughout and the whole thing is a glorious stomp-a-thon which is guaranteed to wreck a few necks along the way.
Now, this next song (I shamefully have to admit, being convinced that Southerners can’t do owt proper like. They aren’t even wearing flat caps!) on the record is an absolute fucking diamond. It’s called ‘Blade Marks The End’ and it is a Sludge ballad about the act of suicide. Which Dark Juan does not condone. If you are feeling this way, then you must seek help! Find Dark Juan and he will be a safe space, but the power and plaintiveness of the vocals from GuitarWill just slaps Dark Juan in the hypothalamus and keeps on punching. BassWill’s rumbling, avalanche bass work under the vocals works just fucking perfectly and Tino Di Donato’s drumming is tighter than the arses of a flotilla of particularly waterproof ducks. Dark Juan has listened to this song seven times back-to-back while writing this review. That should tell you everything you need to know. It is, dare I say it, a fucking grimy, dirty, Sludgy masterpiece.
‘Perfect Mistake’ closes out the EP and this returns to the minimalist Doom blueprint of the first song, although GuitarWill gets to extend the range of his vocal on this one, heart-rending howling giving way to a speedy conclusion whereupon GuitarWill informs us that he likes drinking and smoking on his own, as well as a spot of onanism.
Well, I can’t say I am totally shocked.
The song has a real kind of British Kyuss vibe going on and it’s not so much a song as a joyous romp to close out the record. Dark Juan can easily imagine a sweaty, small room full of flailing longhairs clad in double denim paying homage to a grinning set of Wills and one Tino by utterly destroying themselves as they play ‘Perfect Mistake’ as a gig closer.
So, to sum this up then – If you like Doom and Sludge combined and you are a fan of Crowbar and Saint Vitus and Weedeater and the like, then you are going to find much to enjoy. Granted, Iron Slug don’t move the genre along much, but when you have tunes this good then why the fuck should you care?
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System awards Iron Slug 9/10 for a fucking terrific three-track EP, with two tunes of solid, formidable Sludge and one track of sheer fucking glorious magnificence that transcends its roots. A mark has been deducted simply because Iron Slug have let Dark Juan down by only releasing three songs and that is simply not a sufficient amount for a band who deserve to be at the absolute zenith of the British Sludge / Doom scene to give to Dark Juan.
I just had to compliment Southerners. I will now have to move out of the North. My Northern-ness has been irreparably compromised. You know what? Don’t buy Iron Slug’s music. It’s shit, it’s party music for tweens and its about as heavy as Taylor Swift’s knickers and they are all girlyboys who sound like Alan Carr fronting Babymetal.
Only joking.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Beauty Left In Woods
02. Blade Marks The End
03. Perfect Mistake
LINE-UP:
Will Bond – Bass
Will Rayner – Guitars/ vocals
Tino Di Donato – Drums
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
