Seattle powerviolence band Iron Lung pretty instantly became part of the canon of the hyper-fast, hyper-aggressive genre. Albums like Life. Iron Lung. Death, Cold Storage 1 & 2 and White Glove Test are now listed among genre classics over a decade their senior when recommending starting material to the uninitiated. That’s not even to mention their eponymous record label which has put out a formidable slew of records, stewarding the current and future sects of aggressive music. Their own newest effort, Adapting // Crawling, is no different, showing that the band are still maintaining the standard they’ve set for themselves and others.
Opening track ‘Adapting’ acts purely as a mood setter, with drums echoing into a void of coiling noise, preceding the 19 second blast of ‘Internal Monologue.’ In its miniscule runtime, it manages to pack in some filthy riffs, even if you only notice them as they whizz over your head at terminal velocity. ‘Lifeless Life’ has a little more room to breathe at just under a minute, allowing brief moments of discordant sustain to punctuate the blasts.
Powerviolence can be a hard genre to review, given the microscopic lengths of the songs. That factor, combined with the genre tag is enough to make a lot of people laugh, and I can’t blame them. I think it’s super effective though. These blink-and-you’ll-miss-it releases of energy – like the searing blue light of a nuclear reaction – that leave nothing but pure destruction in their wake. From ‘Internal Monologue’ to ‘Perfect Ending’ there isn’t one song over a minute, giving you whiplash as all these new songs trample over their predecessors to wail on you before another comes to relieve them the second after. By the time that’s finished with the otherwise average 3:36 runtime of ‘A Loving Act’ feels mammoth by comparison; Might as well be a prog song.
That’s not to say ‘A Loving Act’ is a reprieve from the assault, it’s just more enduring. It opens on these leering distorted chords, feeding back into themselves as drums stutter to life beneath their veil. Then the violence starts. An onslaught that lasts just about 25 seconds, consisting of blast beats and ceaseless riffs before giving way to a lone cymbal hit that announces the next section. What you could call a breakdown, a slower riff broken by piercing feedback that gives some minimal breathing room before the next blast. The last half of the track shifts into a doomy outro that falls away into the sound of crackling booms, like a bombing somewhere in the distance on a silent day.
That distant noise kicks off ‘Purgatory Dust’, which has a disgusting dissonant riff halfway through that I count amongst the record’s highlights. It’s a track that gets a reprise a couple of tracks later to mercy kill what was left of it after the band’s path of desolation. ‘Acres of Skin’ features a noise I can only guess is a beautifully destroyed bass tone, ‘Hospital Tile’ is a slamming cut forceful enough to rend flesh from bone and ‘Virus’ features some of the most pungent riffs on the album. ‘Survived By…’ ends the record in a consistent manner, opening on a blast before falling into a tension building riff that reminds me of nineties neo-crust bands like His Hero is Gone (never a bad comparison if you ask me). Iron Lung makes the choice to carry on the campaign of noise until the very end and the only reprieve you get is the end of the record.
This isn’t one of my favourite albums in the genre by any means. I usually prefer my powerviolence records sludgier, noisier and with a lot more bass in the equation (no bias here as a bass player, obviously). That’s not to say this record is bad though. For those who have different tastes in this sub-sub-sub genre it might be right up their alley, and for those alien to the genre entirely it might be a good way to experience the overstimulating nature of it. If I was to recommend an Iron Lung album for that purpose though, I’d reach for Cold Storage II or White Glove Test before I’d reach for Adapting // Crawling.
With that being said I do think that Adapting // Crawling is indicative of a band still able to produce records at their standard of quality even if it isn’t among their own now-classic catalogue. It might not be a career highlight in my opinion, but neither is it a blight on it. It’s simply another entry that reinforces the consistent strength of their discography.
Iron Lung – Adapting // Crawling – Out 18 April 2025 (Iron Lung Records)
LUNG – “Cog II” [official video]
