10 Essential Iron Lung Records Releases

Iron Lung, the band—comprising Jon Kortland and Jensen Ward—existed before Iron Lung, the label. The powerviolence duo formed in 1999 in Reno, Nevada before relocating to Seattle, releasing a series of records on labels such as Prank and 625 before eventually launching their own eponymous imprint in 2007. And since then, it’s become a consistently compelling source for bruising and blistering sounds.

Though it can probably best be summarized as a “punk” label, Iron Lung doesn’t specialize in any one genre. Since its founding in 2007, its output has included hardcore punk, grindcore, post-punk, noise rock, darkwave, death rock, even industrial and noise. As Iron Lung’s motto states, “We know what we like and what we don’t like.” Hard to argue with that!

With the first new Iron Lung album in over a decade arriving this month, as well as a curated festival of like-minded and label-affiliated bands, What We Like Fest, to coincide with it, we take a look at 18 years of raw, abrasive and consistently thrilling sounds from the label. Our picks for 10 of the best Iron Lung Records releases takes a wide view from its art-punk experiments to its most visceral hardcore, as well as the flagship band it was named after.

Blurbs by Jeff Terich (JT), Ernesto Aguilar (EA) and Kurt Orzeck (KO).

Total Control – Typical System (2014)

Aside from the label’s eponymous founders, Total Control were one of the first bands to release music on Iron Lung, issuing the “Retiree” 7-inch single in 2009, followed by the outstanding Henge Beat in 2011. Three years later, they surpassed that early high water mark with Typical System, a more sophisticated showcase for the group’s multifaceted post-punk at a few BPMs lower. Both albums open in a similar manner—with synths rather than guitars—but the slow-burn new wave of “Glass” showcases a more nuanced approach for the group, which is likewise reflected in the dreamy standout “Flesh War” or the soaring jangle of closer “Safety Net.” It’s a more controlled form of art-punk, but just a few inches left of total—when the group ramps up the intensity in the extended outro of “Black Spring” and it threatens to come off the rails, it’s one of the greatest moments on the entire album. – JT

Listen: Bandcamp

Rakta – III (2016)

Rakta are as much a band as a psychedelic coven. The Brazilian group’s darkwave rituals are steeped in otherworldly effects, occasionally stretching out into freely flowing dirges that extend beyond the taut post-punk rhythms that undergird much of their material. On III—which despite what you might think is actually their second album—the group phases between the known world and other interdimensional gateways, channeling the goth-rock darkness of Siouxsie and the Banshees and early Cocteau Twins into wild and wooly freakouts worthy of Comets on Fire. Though less than a half-hour in length, III feels like a cosmic journey that reaches far and wide, only to crash back down to earth as they pound through the gothic garage psych conjuring of “Intenção.” – JT

Listen: Bandcamp

Dreamdecay – Yú (2017)

Before he began embarking on psychedelic krautrock excursions as J.R.C.G., Justin Gallego provided both vocals and pummeling rhythms for Seattle noise rock outfit Dreamdecay (which, as it turns out, has also acted as touring band for J.R.C.G.). The group has yet to release a follow-up to their 2017 album Yú, for obvious reasons, but if they’re going to leave us hanging, this is the way to do it—barbed wire jangle, dense and distorted basslines, and a hefty dose of reverb and delay between the rhythmic throbs. Yet it’s often the subtler, more subdued moments that set Yú apart from much of their concussive noise rock contemporaries, such as when they ease into a more hypnotic post-punk groove on “Bass Jam” or their ascendant shoegaze glory in stunning closer “Arc.” – JT

Listen: Bandcamp

No Faith – Forced Subservience (2017)

Featuring former members of Orchid, Discordance Axis and Vaccine, Massachusetts powerviolence group No Faith are unrelenting in their explosive assault. The group’s sole full-length, Forced Subservience, ricochets between slower and sludgier churns of creeping menace and 10-second blasts of white-hot fury. Amid the thick and crusting tone, their feral barks often sound like they’re being howled from one room over, and the album feels less like an act of surgical precision than a controlled swing of a sledgehammer. Controlled chaos? Sometimes just barely, but that only makes this act of destruction all the more captivating. – JT

Listen: Bandcamp

Diät – Positive Disintegration (2019)

Berlin’s Diät are something like the photo negative of their labelmates in Total Control, several shades darker in their post-punk and more austere in their approach. But much like that other excellent, dormant-for-now band, Diät wrap their brooding post-punk sound in caustic punk rock sneers and razor-sharp power-chord riffs on Positive Disintegration, more “Warsaw” than “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Positive Disintegration, their second and to-date last album, leans a bit further into the gothic dirges than their similarly titled debut, opening with the dramatically dour “We” and marching into robot warfare with “W.T.G.T.D.W.M.” At their best, however, Diät are as much punk as post-, tearing through songs like “Foreign Policy” with incendiary energy. – JT

Listen: Bandcamp

Geld – Beyond the Floor (2020)

Back when I interviewed Geld in 2023, vocalist Al Smith kind of shrugged at the idea that their approach to hardcore was something more psychedelic or unusually abrasive: “To be honest I am always a little perplexed when people refer to Geld as atypical sounding hardcore.” And yet, their sophomore Beyond the Floor is streaked with feedback and piercing highs, squealing guitar leads and an intensity that can’t be measured in sweat. Beyond the Floor is menacing and antagonistic, steeped in caustic guitar tones with more than a little metal in its DNA, and its d-beat rhythms galloping toward oblivion. Whether it strays beyond your own definition of typical hardcore is subjective, but that it’s one of the most intense albums on this list of 10 is saying a lot. – JT

Listen: Bandcamp

Slant – 1집 (2021)

Seoul’s Slant have released only one album to date, 2021’s 1집, which translates roughly to “Album 1.” But the 17 minutes it contains are as potent and raw as vintage hardcore punk gets, maximizing their impact however slight its presence might look on paper. Each 90-second ripper is violent, seething and razor sharp, yet economical, the abbreviated runtimes a deceptive indicator of the roller-coaster thrills they harbor. Yet “raw” is perhaps the key descriptor here, the one quality that just about every album released via Iron Lung shares in common despite how diverse each of its offerings is. For Slant, that comes in the form of ’80s-influenced hardcore punk meant to soundtrack halfpipes and house parties, a rowdy and endlessly fun set of punk sprints that are almost certain to leave a mark. – JT

Listen: Bandcamp

Hologram – No Longer Human (2021)

Austin’s Hologram are by no means the only group on the Iron Lung roster with a yen for squealing, lo-fi, bare-bones hardcore punk. But theirs is a particular kind of nasty, a snarling and gnashing sense of reckless destruction that’s infectious even at its most piercing. In nine songs and 16 minutes, their debut album No Longer Human offers a gallop through flying debris and sharpened projectiles, occasional forays into rhythmic playfulness (the intro to “Deprivation Fantasy”) or sinister noise-rock groove (“Bite the Smoke”), but more often than not they’re on a mission to lay waste to everything in their path. – JT

Listen: Bandcamp

Echthros – God Is Love (2022)

Don’t be put off by the frequent association of Echthros’ God Is Love with experimental music’s worst genre, power electronics. This EP is far better than anything therein, looming with an immense mass of tension and sorrow, vibrating constantly at the edges. Across five tracks, Jesse Decay forges a harrowing tribute to the lingering wounds of colonial violence, using drone and harsh noise as both hammer and scalpel. So much of the Iron Lung catalog relies on blunt fury, but God is Love leans into suffocating density. Layers of corroded static and harrowing distortion build a smothering atmosphere where every frequency feels weaponized. Voices—living artifacts from survivors of the Grouard Indian Residential School—surface like warnings across a battlefield of brittle drones. They are not ornamental; they rupture the continuum, pulling the listener out of abstraction and into the brutal specificity of history. Like much great noise, it’s a hard listen, but essential.

Decay has always found potency in paradox, but God Is Love sharpens this approach with even greater force. The record is a simultaneous act of mourning and resistance, with moments of almost unbearable stillness. If earlier Echthros releases flirted with industrial collapse, this EP steeps itself fully in ruin, carving out uneasy spaces where devastation and resilience clash. You will catch a variety of influences like Atrax Morgue here, but the emotional charge makes God Is Love feel deeply singular. It’s not just an exercise in punishment—it’s a reclamation. The EP bears witness, unflinchingly, to the intergenerational trauma inflicted by Canadian institutions while holding space for a future those same systems tried to erase. – EA

Listen: Bandcamp

Iron Lung – Adapting // Crawling (2025)

Try thinking of a band-run record label that hasn’t issued material by the band itself in a dozen years, and you’re apt to give yourself a migraine. That is, unless you’ve caught wind of Iron Lung’s first record in that many years: Adapting // Crawling. This record is special for a lot of reasons; for one, it hits streets and servers on April 18, the same day that Iron Lung Records’ three-day What We Like Fest, celebrating the label’s 18-year tenure, gets underway in Seattle. For another, the deceptively named Adapting // Crawling harnesses and re-presents the blistering, bombastic, no-holds-barred essence of Iron Lung that established the band—and gave their label legitimacy—in the first place. This is no “reinvention”; it’s drummer/vocalist Jensen Ward and guitarist/vocalist Jon Kortland busting out a brand-new batch of rapid-fire hardcore cuts that are a gift for not just the festival but those who have stuck with them for all these years. – KO

Listen: Bandcamp

Treble is supported by its patrons. Become a member of our Patreon, get access to subscriber benefits, and help an independent media outlet continue delivering articles like these.