Record labels in the scene can be quite polarizing, to say the least, but we’ve yet to hear about anyone besmirching the entity known as Iodine Recordings, and we are going to keep it that way. Founded in Boston, Massachusetts by Casey Horrigan as a record distribution company in 1996, Iodine morphed into its own label in 2000, but it sadly stopped in 2004. Happily, the label announced its return in 2020, and started putting out new material in 2021. Iodine Recordings is still going quite strong with many LPs scheduled well into the year and even some planning into the next. For this piece wherein we spout beauty about ten underrated albums from the label in alphabetical order, we list zero EPs, compilations, split releases, or reissues, so stop yelling before you start.
The Darling Fire “Distortions” (2022)
Apple Music describes The Darling Fire as “hard rock,” and while that is an apt description, the band is also so, so much more than that. Featuring band members from Shai Hulud not named Chad Gilbert and from Further Seems Forever not named Chris Carrabba, TDF’s female spin on a typically male-dominated arena provides a new and fantastic lens on a non-foreign populus. If we can up the ante from 459 monthly Spotify listeners to something in the 460 category moving forward, then our hands will forever remain clean, and life will be the antonym of a freaking downer. On another note, if you need/want/crave/yearn for a home in South Florida, well frontwoman/realtor Jolie Lindholm is for you, and you can reach her directly by ringing 867-5309. Please leave a message at the beep or our collective hearts will stop beating.
Her Head’s On Fire “College Rock and Clove Cigarettes” (2022)
You may not expect to hear modern kindred spirits of The Replacements, Elvis Costello, R.E.M., and other 80s college indie rock acts prior to spinning the most bloodthirsty and violent band named band ever as of press time, Her Head’s On Fire, but the four-piece act composed of members from Saves the Day, The Bomb, Small Brown Bike, and Large White Plane loves to keep you guessing and keep all of the goons complaining. Since “College Rock and Clove Cigarettes” is the band’s only full-length LP as of now, we hope that they’re all hunkering down and creating more ear candy for us all. It’s a common shame that this act fell through the cracks of the most indie of indies, but we’re obviously here to remedy that, as our pristine hearts will beat for you forever and ever amen. Are THEY enough? YES they ARE!
Hey Thanks! “Start/Living” (2022)
New Orleans, Louisiana is normally known for beignets, voodoo, Neutral Snap, and non-neutral by any stretch of the imagination drinks, but Hey Thanks! deserve your time too, and plenty of public and private accolades from the peanut gallery known as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Blending nearly every genre of rock from Warped Tour that doesn’t involve yelling antiquated Christian ideals at unsuspecting teens with vulgar neon v-necks, Hey Thanks! is so, so much more than a The Wonder Years song, and all twelve tracks that comprise their slasher LP known as “Start/Living” are quality jams that even your bitter and boring cousin Mortimer will bop to. Also, if you like your gallons and gallons of falsetto more than you like Adam Levine’s miles and miles of tattoos inspired by M. Shadows, the vocals here are uber pristine and candylike.
Horsewhip “Consume and Burn” (2023)
“Consume and Burn” is the most concise and short listen here with just eight songs and a runtime under twenty minutes, but it is still technically a full-length studio effort! Florida men come in many shapes and sizes, and these four Florida men from the full of fury location known as Tampa Bay, for lack of a better word, whip your horses known as humans into oblivion from the first seconds of “Cutting Through” to the final ones in “Circadian Rhythm,” and we’re all better/lighter jockeys for it. There’s a song called “Pain” here at track number five, and that may as well be the genre of the tunes on this LP, as no other word would do them justice. If you want campfire acoustic classics, steer clear, but if you want to firebomb the warehouse party a la Ass Life, these eight songs will certainly do. HORSEWHIP!
The Iron Roses “Self-Titled” (2023)
Blending elements of pop, punk, pop-punk and a genre that doesn’t exist, unless it does, known as punk-pop, Elkton, Maryland’s The Iron Roses’ self-titled studio album is a unique male and female dual vocal masterpiece with a healthy amount of power chords and upstrokes. You may not expect to hear such saccharine from Nathan Gray, who also is the lead vocalist for your favorite act and ours known as BoySetsFire, but Gray likes to keep ya guessing with a hearty amount of Becky, and not the aunt with the same first name. Some roses aren’t made of stone and deserve some metal, though not in musical style form. Also, this album’s actual cover could work as cool art for your studio apartment or your friend Albie’s garage. In closing, inferior publications dug this band but here it is for you!
Jeromes Dream “The Gray In Between” (2023)
Screw apostrophes, amirite? San Francisco, California’s Jeromes Dream doo-wop harmonious hooligans open their recent LP “The Gray In Between” with a somber and short instrumental known as “Conversations: In Time, On Mute,” which is quite a misnomer by a stretch AND that’s where the mellowness ends. If you dig the aforementioned MA icons Converge that will allude to again later, but think that they should write heavier and more dissonant music for your eardrums, well Jeromes Dream is for you. We must admit, it sounds more like Jeromes nightmare than a happy and peaceful slumber, but that’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, we like it, uh huh, uh huh. “The Gray In Between” has another thing going for it in that it is ten tracks clocking in at just under twenty-five short minutes, so your commute to your in-laws will be THAT much more meaningful.
Onelinedrawing “Tenderwild” (2022)
“Don’t give up” is not only a song on Onelinedrawing’s recent LP “Tenderwild,” but it seems to be a daily affirmation mantra of sorts for vocalist/svengali Jonah Matranga, who also moonlit in influential acts Far, Gratitude, New End Original, and Old Corner Cover. If you like folk music with an emotional/sweet twist, “Tenderwild” is a good one for your record collection, and if you don’t, don’t. Special credence is particularly in order for Matranga, who has been a scene mainstay for longer than many of you have been alive, and we’d bet a large sum that fact won’t change till he’s on his deathbed, or even you on yours. If you only have three minutes and two seconds today to halt doom scrolling and actually listen to quality music, check out this album’s solid title track; hell of a year.
Orange Island “Everything You Thought You Knew” (2002)
If you like Braid and Jawbreaker, but dislike impropriety and dentists, then Orange Island’s “Everything You Thought You Knew” is most certainly for you, despite its album title potentially or kinetically, intentionally or unintentionally, ripping Glassjaw’s breakout LP’s title off! Oh well, consider them unlucky. Anyway, it is still shocking that the mega post-hardcore/emo boom of the early-aughts left Orange Island on their own, err, island, and it wasn’t a long one at that. Clinton, Massachusetts is usually more known for Sliding Billy Hamilton than OI, but we are here to change that grassroots guerilla style via this studio album shoutout. We can’t entirely blame Iodine Recordings for this band not blowing up as they eventually signed to Triple Crown Records and even Rise Records, and called it a day in 2005, the year that acts like Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Avenged Sevenfold, and The Turtles exploded.
Ritual Earth “MMXX” (2022)
At just six songs over the course of nearly forty-five minutes of epic music and musicianship, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Ritual Earth’s full-length is a trippy and heavy masterpiece appealing to fans of psychedelic rock and doom metal, and we’re all for it! As you know, “MMXX” in roman numeral form means “2020,” which may reference the year that Covid-19 quarantined the planet or it might just be a cool combo of letters, fam. Regardless, fans of Meshuggah, Between the Buried and Me, Moon Tooth, and the substance ayahuasca NEED Ritual Earth in their meal plans. Also, if you look at a photo of the band, they certainly look the part, whatever the part is. In closing, this entry may look like a gaffe as it is six songs long but since the tunes are long as hell, it’s technically an LP, suckas!
There Were Wires “Somnambulists” (2003)
There were wires and there must have been something in the water in Massachusetts in the late-’90s/early-’00s, as many acts from this region around that revered time period were stinking mad whilst being wicked pissa, kid! There Were Wires should have climbed to the heights of MA peers Converge, but sadly the band called it a day just one year after “Somnambulists” came out. If you have a BA in English Language and Literature or even climbed the academic mountain higher to a master’s degree or doctorate, you know that “Somnambulism” is a pretentious way to say “sleepwalking” and we blame external factors, dumb luck in a dumb way, and this literal heady album title for the band not being on the metalcore or whatever the hell you want to call it pantheon.
“My order never arrived.”
“Everything was cold! My fries, my burger, even my milkshake was too cold!”
“Jubilation was nice, but a little annoying. She kept finding excuses to keep our conversation going longer than necessary, I think just to use a bunch of dated ’90s mall kid slang. Then she asked us if we wanted to see something cool, and before I could say no thanks, a bunch of sparks came out of her hands? I’m not really sure what the point of that was, or what reaction she thought I would have, but she seemed disappointed.”
“I’m writing to inform you that one of your employees CLEARLY tampered with my food. The driver, a blue-hair-covered individual who referred to himself only as Beast (kind of a red flag!) delivered a pepperoni pizza to my apartment with some of the pepperoni clearly picked off and covered in blue hair. When I confronted Mr. “Beast” about this he told me it must have been someone at the restaurant. When I pointed out that the hair in question was blue he said “Well, maybe they got a blue guy.” I’ve been to this particular Papa John’s on multiple occasions, and I didn’t see any blue guys! Mr. Beast is a liar and a thief, and I believe you should reprimand him.”
“Dasher asked us to give him a rating of ‘Great,’ which I always find a little pushy, especially when they say it so loud it shatters every window in the building.”
“I’m writing to inform you that one of your drivers has been sadistically stalking and hunting my family since we used your app to order some Jersey Mike’s 3 weeks ago. Last time I checked tipping was not mandatory, and Mr. Sabretooth’s retribution feels extremely lopsided. Please tell your employees that it is not appropriate to stalk and kill customers just because they are not satisfied with their tip, please and thank you!”
“I understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I don’t order food from Doordash to hear the driver’s politics! This driver took one look at the Biden sticker on my mailbox and said ‘Oh, you’re one of those humans, huh?’ He then proceeded to go on a long diatribe about how my race’s time as the dominant species on this planet was at an end, and suggested I bow before my new mutant overlords. Also, he forgot my drink! He tried saying it was the restaurant’s fault, but I bet it was his! Terrible service.”
“Ms . Grey is actually two different Doordashers. One is a kind and benevolent dasher with telekinesis and mild psychic ability. The other is an avatar for a cosmic force of unimaginable power, a chaotic and dangerous entity known as The Dark Phoenix. Neither of them read my delivery instructions.”
“I understand that a Doordasher doesn’t always control how hot the food is when it arrives, but when they clearly have the ability to control fire with their mind, it feels passive-aggressive.”
“I do believe one of the few prerequisites you have for your employees is a reliable mode of transportation. Not only did our most recent dasher not have a reliable vehicle, he had no vehicle at all! He claimed he was faster without one, on account of his enormous wings, but let me tell you, soaring through the heavens majestically did not do the freshness of our Outback Bloomin’ Onion any favors.”
“My order arrived late and the driver, a sort of brooding masterless samurai type, guessed every item in the bag by smell. I thought this and his cigar smoking was intrusive and unprofessional.”
“I ordered a chicken sandwich and fries, not a shady riverboat gambler. Mr. Gambit, if that is his real name, not only rang the bell when I clearly instructed not to, but then used our face time to entice me into, I believe, a game of three-card monte. Highly unprofessional and creepy, not charming as Mr. Gambit seemed to believe.”
“I find it highly unprofessional when someone uses their customer service job as an opportunity to try out standup. Your employee, Mr. Morph, subjected me and my family to a variety of impressions when he dropped off our Chipotle order, and while admittedly he was able to make himself look and sound exactly like the people he was impersonating, he worked blue, and my front porch is not an open mic.”
“Dear Doordash, I recently had a negative experience with one of your employees, a driver by the name of Cyclops. Someone needs to have a serious talk with Mr. Cyclops about boundaries. When he rang the bell he assured us he had done a full perimeter sweep of the dining site, which we did not ask him to do. He insisted on being present for our meal, and when I objected he kept telling me I needed to ‘remember who’s the leader of this team.’ When we finished eating he kept giving us a bunch of platitudes about our teamwork. We just ate some Popeye’s dude, chill out!”
“Driver kept warning me not to touch her, which I was not going to do! Oftely presumptuous from someone who addressed me as “Shugga.” Evidently, she has some sort of skin condition that causes bad things to happen any time she is touched. Should she be handling food?!”
“I had a terrible experience with my most recent order. Your driver claimed to be from the future and told every member of my family when and how we would die. You would think Mr. Bishop could have applied his gift of foresight to not be 23 minutes late with our McDonalds. Do better.”
“Do you guys check the immigration status of your drivers?”
“He was like a regular Doordash driver, but with a metal leg. He may have had a mutant ability to understand any machine, it’s not clear, and it didn’t really come up in our brief interaction. I’m not sure why I’m writing this.”
“My order was delivered by a ghoulish-looking man in a cape, and I believe he tampered with my food. Shortly after consuming my Shake Shack, I underwent what can only be described as a sort of forced evolution. My skin turned pale blue, and I’ve been shooting these weird lethal bio-mech darts out of my fingertips. Before I ate that SmokeShack I was Steve. Now, I am ArchSteve, and I’m having a lot of intrusive thoughts about serving Apocalypse. All in all, not a great dining experience.”
“Your app could stand to be more user-friendly. I recently had a problem with an order and was unable to address it from the help menu. There are tabs for “My order arrived late” and “Items missing,” but no tab for “I have incurred the wrath of a powerful storm goddess and it’s been raining on just my house for over a week.” I had to just click “Other” and wasted a whole afternoon just trying to get a human being on the chat. Terrible experience”
“I know your employees are not required to wear uniforms, but you really should enforce some form of dress code. Ms. Psylocke arrived with our food on time, but in a needlessly sexualized outfit that left very little to the imagination. It was some sort of bondage-oriented one-piece that seemed extremely out of place for someone dropping off our Taco Bell to be wearing. My 11-year-old son definitely imprinted on her.”
“Dasher arrived at the door in the form of my dead wife, which I found to be inappropriate. Also, I specifically said not to ring the bell in the delivery instructions. Not a great experience overall.”
“Order arrived promptly, nice and warm, nothing was missing but it smelled really bad for some reason.”
“Amazing driver! Not only did he arrive ahead of schedule, but he brought a bacon and onion pizza instead of the pepperoni pizza I ordered. Here’s the thing, as soon as I ordered it, I regretted my choice, and wished I had ordered bacon and onion instead! I mean, what are the odds?! Really should have tipped this dude more than $2.”
“At first I was dissatisfied with this driver’s performance. He arrived late, and considering his mode of transport that was no surprise. His hover chair, while impressive, was not fast. I started to complain, but then he held his fingers up to his temple and I realized that this was the single greatest doordasher in the history of Doordash. I am reaching out to inquire how I can tip this driver my entire life savings and the deed to my home.”
