The filthy as fuck sludge metal band from the ugly underbelly of the 90s that nobody in a million years thought would’ve arisen from the ashes due to the unfortunate passing of lead singer John Paul Morrow who passed away in 2002 leaving IRON MONKEY’s two 90s cult classics to stand on their own two feet but hey in the world of metal music one should expect the unexpected and even sacred cows sometimes find new a new form of life in an altered yet somewhat familiar form. While simmering in the sludgy underground, this 90s sludge metal band that followed in the footsteps of the Louisiana scene that found Acid Bath, Eyehategod and Grief forging a new ugly style of metal that chipped off strands of DNA from the world of stoner metal and doom metal and crafted a new ugly Frankenstein brother.

While not the first to engage in the rageful vitriol and distortion-fueled din that classic sludge metal rammed down your ear canals with impunity, IRON MONKEY was certainly one of the pinnacles of the hate fueled reverb-soaked sludgery that possibly caused Morrow’s death from choking on his own hate-filled vocal chords while screaming up a storm. Despite written off and left for dead, the MONKEY escaped captivity from whatever experimental lab facility locked them away and returned to the scene in 2017 with its comeback album “9-13” which found guitarist James David Luke Rushby (now simplified to simply Jim) accompanied by original guitarist Dean Paul James Berry (now truncated to Dean) who swapped out guitars for bass. With no viable replacement of the once great vocalist to be found, Jim simply stepped in and honed his own hateful bile spewing from his vocal chamber and called it good. With the addition of drummer Brigga, the MONKEY was back for the attack like Cesar planning an overthrow of humanity on The Planet of the Apes.

Following in the footsteps of the band’s 2017 comeback, SPLEEN & GOAD proves the resurrection was no one-off and although drummer Brigga has been replaced by Ze Big, this album that emerges seven years later very much sounds like “9-13” as IRON MONKEY left behind all those doom metal glacial moments of sustained feedback and oozing out effect of distortion of pain and focused more on the hardcore punk aspects that were in the band’s plans all along before the great implosion that left the MONKEY broken down and disbanded before a third album could ever emerge. Gone are all those smoke-filled stoner rock moments and also gone are the looming doomy passages that slink and slither like a serpent in the Garden of Eden. The new IRON MONKEY has the need for speed and that is exactly what it delivers with an adrenalized procession of downtuned sludge metal riffing sessions that offer a bit of boogie rock flamboyance to its simian swagger.

A modern day album with a retro throwback approach, SPLEEN & GOAD hosts nine tracks at 53 1/2 minutes and an incessant rampage through its battlefield stampede more focused on the quickened galloping pace of groove metal than the sludge on simmer of the past. The results vary as any veritable IRON MONKEY fan cherishes those classic moments that find the guitar sustain tweaking and freaking all over the place one of the band’s primary charms, lead vocalist Morrow’s unfathomable vocal rage excepted. The new IRON MONKEY in many ways sounds more like Amoebix or the 80s crust punk bands than it does its former self but then again the new IRON MONKEY is only half of the equation and any expectations of past endeavors should be firmly quashed. The new balls to the wall approach of IRON MONKEY 2.0 now finds as many albums under its belt as its original run but there’s little doubt this new rendition will ever eclipse the legendary status the original lineup has earned as one of 90s metal’s best kept secrets for so many decades.

The opening “Misanthropizer” pretty much sets the stage of quickened hardcore riffing frenzies with Rushby’s best Morrow imitation that comes close but delivers no cigar but then again taken on its own the new IRON MONKEY does not disappoint in its mostly Sabbath-free, stoner-free agenda either as the highly adrenalized agenda certainly offers a compelling filthy raw mix of primeval sludgery laced with the more rambunctious leanings of 90s alternative metal. The band retains an obnoxiousness that is guaranteed to piss off all but the true sludge fans out there and has lost none of the frenetic misanthropy as the album charges on like the band never left its sludge metal paradise and despite the mostly punk-fueled procession, occasional deviations do occur such as the rare Sabbath sounding track “The Gurges” charges forth and breaks up the monotony with angry stomps that would find Morrow’s harrowing approval. While i do wish the album was a bit more diverse in its approach, i cannot deny than i’m a sucker for this unbridled raging filth of a musical style and therefore soak it in like a sponge. Overall the classic IRON MONKEY is in no danger of being dethroned by the new but for anyone saying these guys never should’ve reunited misses the point of reviving classic sludge metal in a genre that seems to have gotten too progressive and experimental for its own good at times.

Following the grime of the trench pit sludge metal experience that was the 1997 self-titled debut, IRON MONKEY quickly followed with its punchy sophomore release simply titled OUR PROBLEM, a title that belies its caustic excesses that if played loudly in public would make it everyone’s problem! The band’s second offering has been referred to as the ultimate bar fight music with its vicious anger raging across its 45 minute tantrum induced time length. Once again inspired by the New Orleans scene despite hailing from Nottingham, England, IRON MONKEY shifted gears on OUR PROBLEM and added a more musical element, namely a bluesy Southern metal shuffling effect that gravitated more towards Acid Rain this time around rather than the excess torturous displays of pain and anguish as heard from Eyehategod.

Graced with a better production job this time around thus lifting the album out of the lo-fi claustrophobic swamps of the 8-track debut, OUR PROBLEM was a much more professional sounding album on the Earache label and found the band showered with rave reviews and favorable acceptance although i feel the debut’s lo-fi filth and grime approach were quite appropriate for this style of iconoclastic sludgery. Given the greater emphasis on simple rhythms and melodic shuffles, the reliance on extreme feedback and distortion from the bowels of hell, while still creeping in at strategic spots, was deemphasized for a more Sabbath / stoner metal / Souther metal emphasis thus making OUR PROBLEM a bigger hit with those attached to such musical requirements but in the process lost a lot of the evil as fuck characteristics that made the debut stand out amongst the competition. Despite the hype the band didn’t exactly become the next Alice In Chains and remained a cult favorite for a few more decades.

Despite the more groove oriented leanings, lead vocalist John Paul Morrow had lost none of his demonically possessed vocal style and screams up a storm across this album’s run while the twin guitar provide a sludgy wall of sound and amplification without interfering with the audible bass bantering. Of course the melodic touches also dictated the more favorable drumming practices rather than the savagery of the debut that simply called for the most extreme bombast wherever possible. Falling in line more with popular tastes of the era, OUR PROBLEM was much more raved about than the over-the-top debut which took depressive nascent sludge metal to its most execrable extremes. While lacking the diverse motifs that the debut offered, OUR PROBLEM’s songwriting oriented tracks did allow for the use of dynamic shifts with fast groove based sludgery ceding to slower guitar-free bass moves and doomy time outs from a rather quickened pace that gave the album a bit of an alternative metal meets grunge feel as the underpinning of the song structures.

Fortified with ample doses of feedback noise and excessive crushing riffs with the occasional squeals and other tricks of the trade, OUR PROBLEM is considered a major step up in terms of quality from the self-titled debut but it really depends on your perspective now, doesn’t it? Personally i actually prefer the less musically inclined and more noise-centered debut but that does not mean for a minute that i dislike OUR PROBLEM in any way. Both albums simply take on a different emphasis with this one being more in line with the tastes of the public. Unfortunately IRON MONKEY would encounter personal and band tensions which led to its implosion shortly after this album even though a new lineup was attempted but with the untimely passing of Johnny Morrow in 2002 it seemed the band’s chances of a comeback were nil. However to everyone’s surprise the band resurrected in 2017 and has released two new albums as the new IRON MONKEY thus making the new incarnation currently as productive as the first.

On a personal note, IRON MONKEY was my gateway drug into the greater world of sludge metal and totally by chance. I simply loved the grim artwork and took a chance and fell for its raw grime upon first listen. If you wish to purchase IRON MONKEY’s debut as well as OUIR PROBLEM,” the most highly recommended way is on the combo pack of the 2009 compilation “Our Problem / Iron Monkey” which features both albums in their entirely as well as several bonus tracks for each albums and well worth it because the bonus tracks are every bit as dynamic as the albums themselves. As far as i’m concerned, IRON MONKEY’s debut is the pinnacle of the most extreme expressions of 90s sludge metal and remains one of my faves in the since diversified subgenre that splintered off the hardcore punk and doom metal hybridization wagon way back in the 1980s. The bonus tracks are quite different from the album proper with the feedback and fuzz laden “Omozu (Wisdom of Choking)” sounding much more like the early drone metal of Washington’s Earth.

While sludge metal had been a totally American thing first emerging from the Washington state scene and then picked up and developed in the state of Louisiana, by the early 90s it was slowly trickling across the pond and picked up by bands looking for a way to escape the speed traps of the ever-increasing tempos of neoclassical and death metal which pretty much dictated the majority of metal styles of the early 90s. One of the first regions to pick up on the sludge scene was Nottingham, England, first with Fudge Tunnel and then followed by IRON MONKEY who released two excessively caustic yet well regarded albums in the latter half of the decade. While the band only existed for five years from 1994 - 1999 in the first run, founding members guitarist Jim Rushby and bassist / guitarist Steve Watson reformed the band in 2017.

With the original lineup of Justin Greaves (drums, ex-Bradworthy), Johnny Morrow (vocals), Jim Rushby (guitar, ex-Ironside, Wartorn), Steve Watson (guitar, ex-Cerebral Fix) and Doug Dalziel (bass, ex-Ironside), IRON MONKEY recorded its lo-fo self-titled debut on an eight track in 1996 before catching the attention of Earache records which released it as a bonafide album in 1997. Inspired by the heaviest and filthiest sludge metal bands that came before, IRON MONKEY was majorly influenced by not only Eyehategod, Crowbar, early Corrsion of Conformity and Grief but also adopted the sludge metal tendency of hybridizing doom metal into its heavily distorted cacophonous procession through slow cantankerous tracks that offered subject matter as bleak as the collage art on the album cover depicts.

Dripping in heavy sludge riffing with more distorted feedback than should be allowed by law, IRON MONKEY’s debut is a powerhouse of pure unadulterated sludge metal showcasing the style in its most raw and primeval form before the new strains of atmospheric sludge metal a la Cult of Luna and Isis steered it in a more more progressive direction. While the band’s second release “Our Problem” featured more grooves in the vein of stoner and Southern metal boogie rock, this debut eschews any sort of melodic underbelly and only exercises the most extreme form of sludgy metal riffing that offers Black Sabbath inspired doom with serious amplifier abuse with the album culminating in the heaviest display of feedback known to man on the closing moments of “Shrimp Fist.” While the original release featured only six tracks at about 38 minutes of playing time, the later releases featured a sludged out remaking of Black Sabbath’s classic “Cornucopia” which also offers one of the most extreme feedback fuzz outros ever.

In addition to the barbaric amplification that must’ve destroyed more than an amp or two, the highlight is the savage vocal display of John Paul Morrow whose violent screams are the lyrical equivalent of fingernails on chalkboards and the lo-fi production offers the same filthy murk that early black metal had utilized to their advantage. The slow undulating doom metal riffs alternate with faster mid-tempo sludgery in the vein of Eyehategod and Grief but despite the obvious slight degree of separation from the sludge metal acts that preceded, IRON MONKEY offered a more pungent and violent form of the musical style that still to this day sounds like the pinnacle of the heaviest form of sludge. The addition of the excess feedback that squeaks, squeals and shrieks randomly throughout the album’s run is like candy for extreme metal enthusiasts. The band’s debut is the real deal and the one i prefer most even though the sophomore release has its own distinct charm.

On a personal note, IRON MONKEY was my gateway drug into the greater world of sludge metal and totally by chance. I simply loved the grim artwork and took a chance and feel for its raw grime upon first listen. If you wish to purchase IRON MONKEY’s debut as well as “Our Problem,” the most highly recommended way is on the combo pack of the 2009 compilation “Our Problem / Iron Monkey” which features both albums in their entirely as well as several bonus tracks for each albums and well worth it because the bonus tracks are every bit as dynamic as the albums themselves. As far as i’m concerned, IRON MONKEY’s debut is the pinnacle of the most extreme expressions of 90s sludge metal and remains one of my faves in the since diversified subgenre that splintered off the hardcore punk and doom metal hybridization wagon way back in the 1980s.

OSAGE TRIBE was perhaps best known as the Italian band from Genova that Franco Battiato started but left after only singing on one mere pop single before embarking on his solo career of musical experimentations and turning it over to an ever-changing lineup that ultimately fell under the control of drummer / vocalist Ninzio “Cucciolo” Fava. The band experienced significant structural changes and struggled to keep going but finally surrendered to the multi-pronged forces in his opposition after less than two years in existence. OSAGE TRIBE was one of Italy’s earliest bands to jump on the progressive rock bandwagon in 1971 focusing on a penchant for hard rock with strong progressive influences rather than qualifying as a fully indoctrinated prog rock band in its own right.

After acquiring the fiery guitarist Marco Zoccheddu freshly out of Nova Idea and bass guitarist Bob Callero who would go on to play with Duello Madre and Il Volo, the band existed as a power trio only packed a serious punch with Zoccheddu handling not only the scorching guitar duties but offering smatterings of keyboards and harmonica as well as significant songwriting duties. The band engaged in an active albeit live presence in their day and found their sole album ARROW HEAD coming out on the Bla Bla label in 1972 which while focused primarily on the nascent head banging proto-metal effects of early 70s hard rock, still pulled out enough progressive punches in the form of extravagant jazz moves and time signature deviations and elegant use of dynamic mood shifts.

ARROW HEAD featured five heavy tracks and in many emulated the sounds of the heavier sounds of Led Zeppelin as well as displaying the eye-catching album cover art of a Native American woman tempted by the modern world’s lure for money just outside the relative freedoms of her traditional lifestyle which seems to have referred to the band’s pop single being used for a popular TV quiz show of the day. With catchy pop infused hooks OSAGE TRIBE certainly delivered a punch with not only instantly exhilarating melodic ear worms but also with a bluesy guitar style that was reminiscent of Cream and the psychedelic rock giants of the 60s including some Hendrix inspired wah-wah moments. The album’s use of dynamics is its strongest suit with not only pounding hard rock heft thundering like a stamped of American bison roaming the plains but also for its slower contemplative parts as well as the competent vocals performed exclusively in the Italian language.

Also notably different from other hard rockers of the day was Zoccheddu’s use of Native American drumming techniques which made use of the album cover art theme and the deftly blended use of heavy psych in a jazz rock context thus the reason why OSAGE TRIBE despite its hard rock leanings has been indoctrinated into the halls of prog rock as well. Four of the five tracks extend beyond the 7-minute mark and despite some jamming liberties displayed a much wider repertoire of musical ingenuity. The most progressive tracks are expressed on the final tracks “Soffici Bianchi Veli” and “Orizzonti Senza Fine” which gracefully meander through the intricacy of more subdued progressive rock and the more frenetic propensities to let loose into a head banging hard rock banter-fest. In many ways OSAGE TRIBE sounded like the Italian version of what the Canadian band Rush would formulate on its first two albums before Neil Peart took the band into the progosphere.

After the release of ARROW HEAD both Zoccheddu and Callero formed Duello Madre in late 1972, leaving Cucciolo with the name OSAGE TRIBE and a new line-up with former Capsicum Red singer/guitarist Red Canzian and bassist Giampiero Marchiani coming from Forlì. This short-lived lineup was doomed once Cucciolo himself was drafted into the army. Despite this only release seeing the light of day during its initial run, OSAGE TRIBE did find two non-album tracks and “Hajenhanhowa” appearing on the 1972 “Tarzan Compilation” also on the Bla Bla label with Capsicum Red and Black Sunday Flowers. While the band seemed forever lost to circumstance, apparently Cucciolo kept the candle burning and unexpectedly resurrected the band with a completely new lineup and released the 2013 album “Hypnosis.” While many seem to piss all over this one, i actually find it exhilarating! Sure it’s not the proggiest prog of the lot but it’s certainly a very well constructed album and peaks my interest.

While already one of the most eclectic of prog bands that got the larger prog party started with its 1969 classic “In The Court Of The Crimson King,” Robert Fripp ingeniously steered his baby through a multitude of varying styles, techniques and songwriting ingenuity all throughout the early 1970s dropping a few instant classics that caught on with the fans immediately as well as albums that reached unthinkable complexities that took longer than usual to cultivate a warm and fuzzy feeling over. Obviously KING CRIMSON was less concerned with instant gratification for the fans and fully devoted in an almost monkish manner of astute dedication to its craft where each album had to stand on its own and the very thought of a simple copy and paste and then shuffle around a bit approach was not even remotely part of the equation.

One of the most significant reasons for these extreme changes between albums was the unstable lineups which found every album hosting a whole new prog soiree with members joining the team and then departing as soon as they exited the recording studio. By the time KC got to its fifth album “Lark’s Tongues In Aspic,” the lineup of Robert Fripp (guitar, mellotron), Davis Cross (violin, viola, piano), John Wetton (bass, vocals), Bill Bruford (drums and percussion) along with secondary percussionist Jamie Muir proved to be the most cohesive lineup and not only delivered one of the band’s most revered classic albums but followed with a demanding tour that left little time for conjuring up new studio material for the next chapter of the KING CRIMSON saga. By tour’s end only a mere two studio tracks had emerged from the precious little down time the band experienced which led to the dilemma of what to present to the record company for new album material.

The genius of Robert Fripp transcended such obstacles though and after reflecting on the amazing musical moments that the band had honed during their live performances, KC members noticed how extraordinary some of the live improvised footage turned out from the band’s extensive touring schedule and opted simply to capture the magic of a live setting and simply assimilate it into the context of a studio album. Shrouded in secrecy and unrevealed until well after the band broke up after “Red,” KING CRIMSON meticulously scoured through an entire tour’s worth of the best improv moments (primarily lifted from a sole Amsterdam show) they mustered up and mixed live recordings with new studio embellishments. The result was one of the greatest (mostly) live albums that nobody knew was (mostly) live! STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK was born and thus KC created one of the most eclectic albums in their already far-reaching canon that led up to it. The clever KC kept it all under wraps due to the fact record companies pay less royalties on live albums even when they are mere samplings incorporated into the mishmash of live / studio hybrids. The album’s title refers to a quotation from the first two lines of poet Dylan Thomas’ play “Under Milk Wood.”

Enjoying the stability of the same lineup minus Jamie Murr who abruptly exited due to purported back problems leaving Bill Bruford to tackle all percussive duties, STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK found the band shifting gears once again and delivered an eclectic potpourri much more steeped in jazz and classical then anything from the rock paradigm but once again unleashed the goods in a way that was well outside the parameters of the more popular progressive rock acts of the day. While a divisive album for many fans, STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK is one of those albums that you can never predict exactly where it goes. Roughly 3/4 improvised live material and only a quarter studio only, the album begins with the completely new power packed “The Great Deceiver” which delivers one of the hardest rocking songs of KC’s career with Fripp’s spidery guitar riffs haunting the time signature rich musical motifs that offer the most authentic of true 70s rock that KC ever delivered infused with a hard rock energetic performance. Just one of four tracks that featured lyrics, STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK was a mostly all-instrumental affair with complex liberties and creativity flourishing at every juncture.

“Lament,” the only other completely studio track, follows with a softer orchestrated intro ceding to another heavier rocker and “lamenting” the pitfalls of fame and losing one’s anonymity when on the world’s stage as a famous rock band. On tour, Wetton even received an impromptu marriage proposal from an unknown female fan accompanied by her brother to guarantee the success of her fanaticism run amok! After the first two tracks which in a way prognosticate what Fripp would revive in the 80s starting with the trilogy of albums that began with “Discipline,” the rest of the album takes on a more contemplative cerebral approach with thoughtful instrumental compositions that showcase the aleatoric improvisational skills that the band had honed into Olympic winning performances as each musician developed the perfect methodology of punctuating the silence between the other’s playing techniques, a feat almost unheard of in the context of rock music and more akin to the greatest masters of the classic world of jazz. The “Night Watch” showcased the band’s skillful studio mastery of removing any traces of live setting audience noises which was totally absorbed from the single night at the Amsterdam Concergebouw concert.

Being the head scratching shapeshifter that it turned out to be, STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK morphs into a chamber rock session with “Trio”, which found Bruford sitting out and twiddling his thumbs while violinist David Cross evoked more of an Antonio Vivaldi vibe than anything remotely resembling how the album began just a mere five tracks prior. The most daring and complex creations of the entire KC playbook emerge at the end of the album with “The Mincer” delivering an abstract almost Soft Machine style of free jazz only accompanied by Fripp’s eccentric guitar accompaniments. The track meanders instrumentally only to throw the curveball of Wetton’s lyrical contributions emerging towards the end. The track seamlessly cedes into the all instrumental title track which threw the entire world of classical, jazz, rock and chamber music into the cauldron and unleashed a monstrously bizarre track kept from losing any connection to reality by Wetton’s groovy bass lines. Cited as the most difficult composition to play guitar on of his entire career, the closing “Fracture” seems like a totally different band that how the album began with “The Great Deceiver.” The track in many ways showcases the apex of Fripp’s unique playing style that differed so greatly from any other guitarist of the era.

While often ignored for the more cohesive popular masterpieces that bookend it, STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK really is one of the more difficult nuts to crack in the KC playbook but attentive listens over long periods of time reveal its ingenuity and musical innovation in a way that a mere one exposure or even two, three or four could possibly achieve. In many ways the album showcases the pinnacle of the progressive rock paradigm that had apexed in the years of 1973 and 1974 and taking the visionary fusion of rock, jazz, classical and creative license to its logical conclusion. STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK may not be the most accessible of KC’s lauded string of masterworks that were crafted for the relatively short time span of 1969-1974 but after allowing it properly sink in and work its magic, it definitely stands high in the standards set out by the early pioneers of prog and has retrospectively garnered much more acceptance than it did initially when deemed inconsistent and arcane for many.

My personal experience is basically the same as most as my first several encounters left me feeling indifferent and only by attentively listening for many years has the album really gotten under my skin. The album proved to be the perfect transitional stage between “Lark’s Tongue” and “Red” and although the band was on the verge of breaking up, showcased the magnanimous nature of what talented dedicated musicians can achieve when they fully commit themselves. Perhaps just a smidge behind the album it followed and one that came after but nevertheless STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK now screams masterpiece every time i put it on. For those having a hard time with this one, don’t force it. Let it sink in. It truly is one of those albums that only reveals itself after numerous exposures and astute attentiveness. While many dismiss this as a mere space filler between “Lark’s Tongue In Aspic” and “Red,” STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK is certainly no slacker when it comes to high quality and compositionally challenging progressive rock. In fact it was TOO complex for its own good in many ways but has more than stood the test of time and in many circles equally revered as just another classic in the impressive KC canon.