We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Get the city love you

by Iguana

/
  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    As odd as it may seem, but this is indeed the first full-length of German outfit IGUANA; entitled 'Get The City Love You'. Even though the band is around since 2002, they've only released a couple of Eps and single, mainly playing live. The opening made by 'New Moon Flyby' is as dark and viscous as a swamp in Louisiana and strangely alive as a city is at night. Dry riffs creep out slowly of dark corners only to melt with the shadows again in a blink. The rhythm base never rises up, never gets more prominent than it has to be. On 'Vague As A Mirage' it is time to tap your toes and nod your heads folks to dusty notes atop a strange undercurrent of subtle desperation. A slight progressive breeze comes through on the following 'Royal Null Drift' where there's a consistent change of metrics involved with guitar and fuzzy bass lines meandering around them wondering what's going to happen next.

    The mentioned sense for psychedelia becomes apparent on the album's title track just like another thing: A straight rock appeal and pop-ish structures,I mean the chorus is unashamedly catchy as far as catchy goes with these guys. For once, there is light coming through on 'Morning Eve' but it's just a glimpse, permeating a gritty fabric of bluesy and dirty rock. If you still need hard proof of craftsmanship then I suggest you listen to 'Fukushime50' right now. Clocking in at roughly 8 minutes it goes through various incarnations while still retaining a core theme. You could say except that everything is in a constant flow and it flows rather nicely with lots of details and sound wizardry. Actually this is something you can break the whole album down to: It playfully flows, sometimes with vocals and other times without them, always with a touch of dim darkness!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Get the city love you via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 14 days

      €16.90 EUR or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €7.90 EUR  or more

     

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Morning Eve 04:48
6.
7.
Fukushima 50 07:57
8.
9.
Down On You 04:02
10.

about

With a potent and natural-sounding mixture of desert groove and classic rock jangle, the mostly-German four-piece Iguana debuted earlier this year with Get the City Love You, a 10-track LP steeped in love of ’90s melodicism and post-Queens of the Stone Age lumber. That influence shows up particularly on cuts like “Vague as a Mirage” and “Get the City Love You,” which have some of the style of low-end push that made British outfit Crystal Head‘s first album so engaging earlier this year, but it’s only a sliver of the whole breadth of Iguana‘s work. Even the title-track isn’t so limited, winding up in a start-stop that reminds of Primus‘ “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” as well as the aforementioned desert thud.

Helping any grunge comparison you might want to make, vocalist Alexander Lörinczy (also guitar) boasts elements of classic Chris Cornell in his style, and though it’s an easy comparison to make, that winds up adding to the individuality of Iguana, since the music surrounding moves from the dreamy laid-back psych of “Morning Eve” to the Easternisms of “Madinat al Yasmin,” the early central figure of which I’d swear I’ve come across before either from Master Musicians of Bukkake or in one of Siena Root‘s endearing raags. “Madinat al Yasmin” moves into vaguely-doomed stomp, with Alexander May‘s bass featuring heavily in the mix alongside psychedelic leads and insistent riffing from Lörinczy and guitarist Thomas May. Even with two guitars, though, Get the City Love You doesn’t feel thicker than it should, keeping some space in the recording from the start of opener “New Moon Flyby,” which barely hints at the stylistic complexity to come, despite being a solid execution of Alice in Chains-style harmonizing.

There’s a lot to soak in on the 48-minute album, and after the eight-minute “Fukushima 50” — which boasts a circuitous rhythm that would make Fatso Jetson proud — the ensuing “Über-Idolizer” has a difficult task in distinguishing itself through a slower tempo. Nonetheless, Lörinczy‘s easy moves into and out of falsetto and drummer Robert Meier‘s bluesy kick drum make the track more than an afterthought, and a layered chorus in the penultimate “Down on You” ensure that the momentum carries into understated closer “Freshly Tranquilized,” which caps the promising debut with a warm instrumental build, no more or less sweetly-toned than anything Iguana has had on offer prior.

Get the City Love You was released in June on Sweet Home Records. Were it not for the fact that the two bands have already toured together, and so he’d obviously be aware of them, I might have sent their stuff on to Christian Peters from Samsara Blues Experiment for consideration of Iguana as a fit on his Electric Magic imprint. In any case, Iguana — who also had an EP out in 2008 — give themselves a solid foundation creatively here from which to cohere and build their next time out, and show a noteworthy range in their songwriting in the meantime.

They’re all over the internets — be it Thee Facebooks, Spotify, SoundCloud, their own site, iTunes, etc. — but I thought the video for “Morning Eve” from the album would be a good first impression for anyone not yet introduced.

(2012 by JJ Koczan, Source: theobelisk.net)

credits

released June 22, 2012

Bass – Alexander May
Drums – Robert Meier
Guitar – Thomas May
Vocals, Guitar – Alexander Loerinczy

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Iguana Chemnitz, Germany

IGUANA performs a sincere, versatile, heavy and progressive kind of Fuzz Rock. Although still being deep-seated with this genre they have moved on to develop their own vision of a deep, melodic and wistful Hard Rock music. It’s somekind of Desert-Psychedelic-Doom-Post-whatever in the broadest sense. ... more

contact / help

Contact Iguana

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Iguana, you may also like: