IRON LUNG To Release First New Full Length In 12 Years: Adapting // Crawling Out April 18 via Iron Lung Records.
DIY / punk vets IRON LUNG return with their first new studio album since 2013 – Adapting // Crawling arrives April 18 via the band’s own esteemed imprint, Iron Lung Records. In addition to the release and performances confirmed throughout 2025, the duo made up of Jensen Ward (drums / vocals) and Jon Kortland (guitar / vocals) are celebrating the label’s 18th anniversary simultaneously with a three day fest - What We Like - which takes over Seattle April 18 - 20. The weekend includes 26 exceptional bands from all around the globe, most of them with releases in the Iron Lung Records fam, plus two films, an art show and local cuisine. The event takes over three venues - all shows, all ages.
From the beginning, IRON LUNG have ethically / sonically approached the world: Do It Yourself, obscure, extreme, maladjusted and utterly free from the constraints of “music” or, more widely, rules in general. Each record has been written around a concept. For Adapting // Crawling, IRON LUNG take head shots at mental health with specific emphasis on the exacting tolls the past five years have taken on humanity. The album acts as a sliced cadaver with each song a newly peeled layer exposing the corrosive effects of deep depression, a failed healthcare system, heavy grief from multiple friends/family deaths, paranoia and distrust of government, meaningless existence and loss. So much loss. When time disappeared between 2020 and 2023, the loss of function, of relation, of drive, of everything was incalculable. Life goes on but we lose a little more each day. To help cope with that crushing reality, IRON LUNG finally sat down and wrote about their pain.
In order to not be consumed by it, they built a wall around themselves utilizing an “us versus them” modality in the lyrics. All of the band’s points of view are from the “we” stance and are funneled through their long established lens of antiquated medical procedures and devices. The only times that mode breaks is when quoting an outsider view before rejecting and destroying it. The power belongs to IRON LUNG and by association, to the allied listener.
On their lead single, “Lifeless Life”, IRON LUNG paints the hopeless picture of being imprisoned in a windowless room. The flickering fluorescents are the only light source and offer no respite or inkling of time. A truly disorienting state akin to mental torture.