Prepare to have your hair cut blown away.
If you’ve caught Sydney riff wizards Iron Blanket in bars and clubs around the country, you’ll know the group don’t fuck around. At their shows, they stand and deliver, sucking viewers into their fuzzy vortex filled with doomy jams and wailing vocals. Their latest tune ‘Evil Mind’ does exactly that, with the five-piece taking us on a whirlwind riff ride.
Lyrically the tune invites us into the unspoken deepest and darkest thoughts of frontman Johann Ingemar. “I wanted to explore the mind of someone giving themselves over completely to desire and animalistic impulses,” Ingemar says. “Whether that be giving yourself to the devil or simply to darker parts of one’s own psyche is up to the listener.”
Halfway through the track Iron Blanket open up a half-time portal of doomy heaviness with duelling guitars, hazy vocals and sludgy bass as Ingemar sings the track’s most poignant lines: “Wicked thoughts not my own / Sold my soul to be unknown.” The song then peaks as the tempo picks back up again for one final assault on the ears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtupNgRN-xY
The accompanying visuals see the group embrace the cultish undertones of the track with director Madeleine Purdy paying homage to 70s horror. Hands of worship, evil eyes, and candelabras drift in and out of screen as the band replicate their high-energy live show while the camera circles around them like a hungry shark.
“Madeleine came up with some amazing ideas once we had described our vision to her,” Ingemar says of the clip. “She brought the video to life in a way we couldn’t anticipate and really nailed the lo-fi seventies aesthetic we were going for.”
‘Evil Mind’ is the first taste from Iron Blanket’s debut record Astral Wanderer which was recorded by Phan Sjarif at Parliament Studios in Sydney. The album will be released in February 2024, with more unbridled stoner rock on the way in between.
The band will be supporting legendary Swedish rockers Dozer at the Vanguard in Newtown on November 11th – don’t sleep on it!
