Just like iron can shape iron, people can shape people. That was the idea behind the naming of Post Animal’s new record, a sentiment reflected in the making of the album itself. While it’s been almost a decade since the group’s core six members came together in a studio, their friendship has stood the test of time. Since their last release together, 2018’s When I Think of You in a Castle, most of the members have made forays out of their home base of Chicago in search of other things. Guitarist Matt Williams moved to Los Angeles, bassist Dalton Allison to Ithaca, and multi-instrumentalist Jake Hirshland to Brooklyn. Joe Keery has been gone for the longest, having made his exit in 2017 to focus on acting. He also happens to be the catalyst for bringing the band back together again.
After Keery made a surprise stop at his former band’s show in New York last year, the friends formed a plan to get into the studio. There weren’t plans to create another record, but rather to experience making music together again. It was a no-pressure situation with a simple goal. But of course, the inevitable happened: The weeks-long passion project eventually begot the existence of a new record, IRON.
With all their shared history, Williams said IRON spawned one of the easiest recording processes he’s ever experienced. (Which is a promising start, considering overthinking might have been what made the band’s previous album Love Gibberish so disappointing.) Not only have the band members collected years of new musical experiences since their last collective effort, but with their simple goal of connecting with one another, it’s understandable that the recording process came with a noticeable sense of ease.
Naturally, that feeling extended into the music, infusing IRON with a sense of effortless musical kinship and camaraderie. Take the instrumental track “Malcom’s Cooking”: Recorded on an outdoor balcony among singing cicadas, the song is a homage to the band’s friend Malcolm Brown, whose Indiana home served as the recording location last fall. With plucked guitars and jangly percussion, the song is a lively invitation to the record. “Common Denominator” is similarly cozy and lush with its delicate interplay of soft vocal lines and picked guitars.
The gut-punch “Maybe You Have To” is another extension of the theme of connection, opening with a voicemail from drummer Wesley Toledo’s abuela, a message she left just before she passed. Sliding into a hazy atmosphere of distorted vocals, guitars, and layered harmonies, the song jumps between moments of introspective shoegaze and punchy pop rhythms. The changing sounds match the shifting lyrics traversing the blunt inevitability of death, and the solemn feelings that linger after saying goodbye.
While most of the tracks look at the band’s connections with people, others are about their relationship with the world. “Pie In the Sky” is a hunky-dory, quirky tribute to the moon above us, while “What’s a Good Life” reckons with what makes a meaningful life. “What’s a favorite thing you’ve done?” they ask atop shimmering synth lines. The high synth parts soar at the start, giving way to lower percussive tones in later verses. The contrast makes for an interesting listen, although a fusion of the two sounds throughout would have given this track a more expansive sound.
The band continues an examination of life on “Setting Sun,” where driving drums and synths introduce a sunny rock ballad celebrating the perseverance it takes to survive. (With its stacked guitars and theme of embracing the moment, the song feels like a harder take on 2022’s “Love Gibberish.”) While “Setting Sun” initially retains a traditional rock structure, a delicate piano interrupts the guitars in the bridge, serving as a satisfying palate cleanser that falls effortlessly into the last half of the track.
If “Setting Sun” is a song of lessons learned, “Last Goodbye” tackles the events that helped the band learn them. Exploring the rippling feelings felt at the end of a relationship, it’s difficult for songs with this theme to stand apart, considering it’s one of the most motivating topics for art of all time. While many of those songs end up sounding one-note or overly self-involved, Post Animal’s breakup song stands out on their album with its shifting harmonies and intentional lyrics. “We’ve been looking for a reason / But we’re both patient,” they sing, both sides letting go of the fantasy and sinking into the realization that they’re not with “the one.” While desperate to move forward, the world pulls the narrator back to their former lover. You feel just as powerless as he does amongst the song’s evolving structure.
The topic of existential love continues on the title track, which unfortunately falls victim to the self-serving existentialism mentioned prior. A spacey piece of mid-tempo drums, distorted harmonies, and jangly piano lines, it feels like a sad way to end an otherwise triumphant album. The psych-pop track “Dorien Kregg” is a similar outlier, with its surreal lyrics about a pretend character rather than those true, connective themes. While its layered chords are satisfying, I’d rather see this in a concept album of its own than in IRON’s story.
But IRON is chock-full of solid guitar riffs and addictively sunny verses. While some songs don’t quite stack up to the others, and some are inconsistent with the overall theme, it’s clear the band had fun making this record. The energetic glee of their rekindled friendships emanates throughout the songs, solidifying IRON as the best Post Animal album since 2020’s Forward Motion Godyssey. It doesn’t have the same sonic continuity as their debut or sophomore records, sure, which were marked by a consistently heavy psychedelic lean, but it is full of rippling textures, an innate playfulness, and optimistic, inspiring worldviews. Having Keery (whose 2025 solo album The Crux was also quite good) back in the mix makes everyone around him better. Especially compared to their last record, IRON sounds like a realized formation of what Post Animal was always supposed to be.
