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Album Review

My Iron Lung – “Learn The Leave” [Album Review]

With a spat of melodic hardcore acts these days, it’s tough to stand out from the crowd and even tougher to produce anything noteworthy. So has this latest release from My Iron Lung done anything to distinguish itself – or is it just another on the list of ho-hum releases this year?

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Just in time for the waning of the summer season comes this incendiary release from My Iron Lung, a love song to the emo and punk genres alike, and a remarkable overture from a band that has seen criminally little exposure. But that might just be about to change given the mature and accomplished musicianship on display in this release. One can’t but help be drawn in by the tugging of heartstrings that prevails across the album, albeit in a variety of ways that keeps the listener enraptured and the tempo upbeat despite the content of the lyrics.

There is a lot to love about this album, not least of which being the guitar work on display. Far be it from being pigeonholed into one particular genre, there are moments of soaring pop sensibility (such as on “Mend”), Modest Mouse-esque reflections (“A Reason To Worry”), and driving, vengeful spurts of pained expression (“Damage”). Wrapping it all up together are the vocals that are abrasive and yet remain honest and untempered, giving the impression that this is someone on the brink of understanding something deeply painful about the world.

Of course, you’ve heard this album before, whether it’s by the band themselves or any of the other legion of emo/punk/hardcore/skramz hybrids that are releasing a wide array of releases these days. I won’t fault the genre, because it’s always had a large number of acts attempting to recreate some of the progenitors of the genre. My Iron Lung just happen to be one of the few decent attempts at this, and this latest release is one that should stay on your radar.

Learn The Leave Track Listing:

01. Hiding
02. Learn To Leave
03. Damage
04. The Same House
05. Somnium
06. A Reason To Worry
07. Mend
08. Sleep Cycle Blues
09. When Tragedy Strikes
10. Anchorage
11. Certainty

Run Time: 32:19
Release Date: August 5, 2016

Check out the track “Damage”

Director of Communications @ V13. Lance Marwood is a music and entertainment writer who has been featured in both digital and print publications, including a foreword for the book "Toronto DIY: (2008-2013)" and The Continuist. He has been creating and coordinating content for V13 since 2015 (back when it was PureGrainAudio); before that he wrote and hosted a radio and online series called The Hard Stuff , featuring interviews with bands and insight into the Toronto DIY and wider hardcore punk scene. He has performed in bands and played shows alongside acts such as Expectorated Sequence, S.H.I.T., and Full of Hell.

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