Review: IAN ‘Come On Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing!’

Holy fuckin’ Moly, it’s IAN!! The Band!!!

This is the statement that should be on everyone’s lips when becoming aware of the fact that London’s premier underground drudgy doomy punky post-metal act has finally put together an album, and that it’s arriving imminently at a store, or platform, near you.

IAN are one of those bands that if you know, then you know. And if you don’t, you should. Having known each other for years, and playing together equally as long, IAN are the force of nature that happens when you leave things bubbling long enough to evolve into a beast both monumental and compelling. It’s the kind of thing that will have you wanting to say you were the person who saw them first.

For me, that’s an easy one. I saw them opening for Codespeaker, Kulk, and Hundred Year Old Man last November, in what turned out (unsurprisingly) to be a truly memorable occasion indeed. At the time, I had absolutely no awareness of them, it was nye on impossible to find anything about them online, and as the unknown quantity of the evening, they utterly blew me away when I did get to see them in all their glory.

I was transfixed by their juxtaposition between heavy raging lunacy and passive introverted melancholy and left the venue hoping to see them again real soon. Since then, I’d often wondered what they’d been up to. So when the opportunity to review their debut for The Sleeping Shaman came along, I couldn’t refuse. It’s a real honour to be reviewing it today, that’s for sure

While Come On Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing! may only have five tracks, it still comes in at forty-five minutes of earth-shattering, mind-mincing sonic intensity, which will leave you quivering in its wake. It is the sound of a band who don’t follow any genre or fad; they play by their own rules, and if you are looking for something that’s one hundred percent the real deal, then IAN is that band.

This album is the culmination of all those ideas, the creative outpourings, the insertion on specific elements at specific moments to cause maximum devastation and sorrow in equal measure. It’s the sound of a lot of angst and anger; sorrow and sadness all rolled into a dirty old blunderbuss and blasted out at warp speed to decimate anything in its path.

Quieter moments are deeply emotive, with a masterful display of cello at work, to really compact those deep down inside sorrows. Vocal passages are visceral and punishing. The passionate percussion attack is devastating when it needs to be and understated like a sonic monologue elsewhere. Guitars flit between churning and wailing, and menacingly play with the bass, to create a feel that is both unsettling and disjointed, but not at all in a clumsy way, it all sounds epically considered and deliberate.

forty-five minutes of earth-shattering, mind-mincing sonic intensity…

Over the course of the five tracks, you can really get a feel for the band’s dynamic. The precision in the recording that was carried out by Wayne Adams at Bear Bites Horse, helps to solidify their identity, and you are left with an experience that is as engaging as it is unique.

Manuel sets the mood for the whole event, right from its inception, it is a breakneck thrill ride of emotion. Much like sniffing mustard, if you play this loud enough, it will literally burn behind your eyes. It’s sludgy and takes no prisoners in its thrust to grab your attention. Dropping off into a mournful second act, the cello takes centre stage, it’s a beautifully sorrowful experience, every stroke of the bow feels heavier than its predecessor, and it is hauntingly morose in its application.

It is just one of the many ways that IAN show how clever they are, and what a level of mastery of the musical environment they have. It is so utterly engaging that the time passes without any concept to the point where it feels like it could go on eternally, but finishes as abruptly as it starts.

With track two, Building Pyramids, we get to see another side of the band, where a long, drawn-out introduction rolls on for what feels like an eternity, before bursting into a volatile tirade of noise. It’s here where I feel those Codespeaker and Hundred Year Old Man vibes, and what I especially love is that all three bands are homegrown, which just goes to show what a wealth of incredible talent is coming out of the UK, enough to match the huge European bands, if not excel far beyond them.

While Fennel returns us to the same level of spite that Manuel did on the opening track, it’s on Selma where the band pull a masterstroke. Led by a morosely sombre cello taking centre stage, you settle in expecting the track to continue that way until its climax. But at the six-minute mark, things change like a swift kick to the balls, and all hell breaks loose. Replacing the deep darkness with a harsher counterbalance, it’s all instrumental until the sixth minute when the volatile vocal interjects, and the remainder is simply devastating.

Not Erotic / Cop Film (End Credits)is an almost fourteen-minute climax to the assault, and after an initial lighter ambience, not unlike Mono, the remainder of the composition is a heady mix of dark sombre and heavier passages, and it’s this parallel that leads us into the void.

Easily one of the best albums I’ve heard this year, IAN are the band you need to keep an eye on, because if this is anything to go by, then the future is going to be incredibly huge for them. I’m so glad I got to see them last year and had the opportunity to review their debut because this truly is a top-tier album, worthy of all the praise it will have draped on it over the coming months.

Label: Human Worth
Band Links: Bandcamp | Instagram