Iron Lung unleashes their vital 64-second onslaught, “Cog II.” The single “grapples with how the governing bodies view their citizenry in a time of crisis. People are treated as an expendable resource not unlike gasoline, compost or potable water. To achieve their ends, they take what they want from us and throw the rest away. So wasteful and inhumane,” Iron Lung express. “To the powers that control existence, human life is worthless. We’re used and discarded, treated like human garbage. They’re waiting for the breakdown. We’re fertilizer. We are worth absolutely nothing. Totally expendable. The process of being replaced has begun again.” The single is taken from Adapting // Crawling (Iron Lung Records) and arrives on April 18 via the band’s own esteemed imprint.

Its arresting video presents a patient being prepped and processed for Electro Shock Therapy treatment in 1941 at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, sourced from the National Library of Medicine. 

On Adapting // Crawling, the first new album in 12 years from hardcore / DIY vets IRON LUNG, duo Jensen Ward and Jon Kortland take headshots at mental health with specific emphasis on the exacting tolls the past five years have taken on humanity. From the beginning, IRON LUNG has 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. 

Adapting // Crawling 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.