Ironrat – Beneath It All
Ironrat – Beneath It All
Argonauta Records
Release Date: 28/02/25
Review by Dark Juan
Twenty-seven nonillion/10
How do, good folk. It is Dark Juan here, speaking to tha from the Calder Valley in God’s own county of Yorkshire, where t’lads are fierce, and t’lasses could wipe the floor wi’yer. It is a beautiful but bleak land up here, wi’ t’moors stretching for miles in front of you and we have an unaccountable desire to build houses on hillsides and not on the flat bits. It has an offering for you, non-Yorkshire folk too though! Today, we are listening to the long-awaited second album from Yorkshire’s own Ironrat, entitled “Beneath It All”. They’ve only kept me waiting for this for nearly ten years, the fucking shower that Ironrat are. Although, to be fair, Mrs Dark Juan has known Gordon (drums) for even longer than I have from his time with Lazarus Blackstar, where at gigs (because she is also friends with Mikhell Chernobyl, erstwhile vocalist of Blackstar) she used to collect pennies from the crowd and attempt to get them in Mikey’s penny slot by bombarding him with them mid-performance, his penny slot being his arse crack poking out of the top of his unfeasibly tight leather trousers. Also, Gordon is a top man and a true gent with tremendous music taste and is doing lots of work on Crow Cottage for us, so already Ironrat are worth several billion/10 just for Gordon being an all-round splendid chap.
Well, that went more than usually off-piste, didn’t it? Sorry.
The record opens with ‘Liar’ and in true Yorkshire fashion, there’s no fucking about. There’s a riff in the left speaker; Gordon unleashes himself on his tinware and then the Groove Monster is activated. And it’s absolutely fucking cataclysmic. The mix and production on this album MUST be heard to be believed. There’s sooooooooooo much bottom end. There’s more bottom end than you having sunk 10,000 clones of your mum, all wearing neutronium knickers in the depths of the Marianas Trench and then pouring a fucking cargo ship load of Soviet shot-putters called Svetlana on top of them. Yet, it does not take away any clarity from the tubthumping or the guitar work, both of which cut cleanly through the diabolical Sludginess of the bass. Vocalist and string slinger Martin Wiseman is also a revelation, his voice cleanly cutting through the Doomy murk of the music with power, a Layne Staley/ Ozzy Osbourne chimeric howl that sets the nerves afire. His performance is electric throughout the album, his voice charming as much as it is aggressive. I’m also a fan of his work with fellow Yorkshire Doomsters Wolves In Winter (Dark Juan is privileged to live in the epicentre of British Doom Metal, being as we have My Dying Bride, High Parasite, Paradise Lost, WIW and Ironrat within ten miles, and most of them turn up at the pub up the road more often than not when Mushy is putting on Lizardfest at The Blind Pig pub, also half of Ironrat are Wolves In Winter members as well) and to hear him with Ironrat as well is a bit special.
‘Tip of My Tongue’ is a fucking massive track in every regard. There are riffs of such glorious magnificence that I am struck totally dumb, the bass has rearranged my internal organs and the vocal, the backing vocal and the chorus are all bigger than a politician’s ego and I have been transported to some other plane of existence where Doom Metal is all. There is nothing but Doom Metal anymore. Abandon hope all ye who enter here, if you fancy a quiet life. The thunderous, ponderous chugging continues on ‘Lost’ which has an inexorable quality that’s going to make fucking sure that the music has ground you to powder before it’s done with you. The heaviness is prodigious, and yet it is never too slow. It is a magnificently judged piece that balances tearing your spine out and beating you to death with the wet end and yet maintaining musicality and offering you a right fucking curveball in the middle of the song, when there’s a small break from the peine forte a dure and Ironrat go full on Grunge. Briefly.
And this is where Ironrat are truly interesting, you see, because among all the Doom, there’s an admixture of Grunge and a bit of Prog too. Ironrat themselves rate Alice In Chains and Mastodon as influences, and the AIC influence is very prevalent in the vocal delivery, especially when there’s backing vocals involved. This is absolutely a Very Good Thing as it gives Ironrat’s music a real interest beyond being just Doom/ Sludge Metal. That Grunge element gives it a real emotional connection with the listener that some Doom Metal doesn’t have. I give you, as evidence, the verse on ‘Burn’ and there really is summat wrong wi’yer if it doesn’t set your hairs standing up and sending a shiver down your spine. There’s some fucking delicious soloing on this song as well. It’s making me pull faces while I listen to it and Mrs Dark Juan is laughing out loud at me gurning in sheer, untrammelled and perilously close to orgasmic joy while I listen to it. It’s the highlight of an already impossibly good album and Dark Juan has been reduced to a dribbling, spineless wreck. It’s fucking grand, ah tell thee, grand, lad.
So, if you want Sludgy, Doomy Metal that has more grooves than a vinyl pressing plant, is heavier than the molten core of a planet, has more soul than the entire Motown and Stax record labels COMBINED and yet still retains a sense of fun and enjoyment and also features terrifyingly committed performances from the entire band, then, lads and lasses, you are going to fucking love “Beneath It All” by Ironrat.
Dark Juan does. And not just because Gordon is my mate either. Generally, when I review records that my friends are involved with, I am more than usually critical because I don’t want to be accused of favouritism. Unless it’s Iron Slug, because then I will mock them for being Southerners and needing a big coat when it’s a bit breezy. Or Runereader, in which case I’ll just accuse them of using children’s toys instead of instruments.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System is more excited than the time he got a hug off Beth-Ami Heavenstone (we all know how much Dark Juan adores Beth-Ami Heavenstone) about this seminal album from Ironrat. Yes, Dark Juan and the Blood Splat Rating System are in accord in considering this record the finest Doom/ Sludge to come out of the UK thus far and will score it twenty-seven nonillion/10. You are most welcome, Oli Gonzalez.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Liar
02. Tip of My Tongue
03. Lost
04. Burn
05. Wasted
06. Obscene
LINE-UP:
Martin Wiseman (Psychlona, Wolves In Winter) – Vocals & Guitar
Wayne Hustler (Wolves In Winter, ex-Monolith Cult) – Guitar
Stuart Hillman – Bass
Gordon Wilkinson (Hollow Earth, Lazarus Blackstar, ex-Khang) – Drums
LINKS:
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