Source: Album Artwork
San Diego, California has produced some of the best talent in modern music. If Pierce The Veil and Angels & Airwaves don’t float your boat, maybe Stone Temple Pilots or As I Lay Dying are more your thing. Either way, it’s undoubtedly a pool of incredible artists which also includes some up-and-comers. My Iron Lung has only been together for five years yet already boasts a signing to Pure Noise Records and a debut album entitled Relief, which was released back in 2014. This summer saw the quartet release their second effort, Learn To Leave, in an attempt to pick up where they left off.
My Iron Lung are a rock band, and their no-frills approach is commendable. They’re not parading behind the “generic” label of pop punk and they’re not nearly hard enough to be classed as metal, but their command of interchangeable heavy and soft is a sound for sore ears in this day and age. Their sound is the kind that would have thrived back in 2005 amongst the likes of early My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday and Funeral For A Friend, yet despite how dated it is, they manage to make it work.
‘In Hiding‘ is the opener and sets the scene, but it’s tracks further in like ‘Somnium‘ and ‘When Tragedy Strikes‘ that really steal the show. The former has a brilliant lyric theme and professional delivery while the latter offers a minimalist build up and the kind of huge chorus that would go down a treat at your favourite emo club night.
Every track is consistent with one another and remains within boundaries that My Iron Lung have clearly set themselves. It’s solid for that very reason as they haven’t tried to expand outside the box for fear of likely ruining the sound that has evidently worked for them but with no experimentation comes no element of surprise. They’re not trying to be innovative here, that much is for certain, but after a while the album becomes predictable because of their inability to do more with what they’ve got.
It’s certainly not a bad album and it has it’s good points, but at times it also falls flat. There is absolutely no doubt that My Iron Lung are capable of much more as those golden tracks are the very best— they just have to learn how to deliver all material to that incredible standard.
