Striking While the 'Iron' is Hot: Post Animal's Iron-Clad Resilience [PENNY 4.2]
- Erin Christie
- Nov 3
- 5 min read
Updated: 12 hours ago
This piece originates from the forthcoming Penny print issue, Penny 4.2. Find links to read the printed version below, with this piece starting on pages 38-41.
Interview by Erin Christie
A classic storybook opening sequence — soundtracked by finger-plucked guitars, warbling hums, and the natural sounds of sizzling frying pan contents — ushers the members of Chicago-born rock band Post Animal back to their woodland cabin home, setting the tone for the tale comprising their newest album, IRON (self-released July 25). As the curtains are drawn back, the six Musketeers — guitarists Javi Reyes and Matt Williams, drummer Wesley Toledo, bassist Dalton Allison, and multi-instrumentalist Jake Hirshland, as well as the newly re-instated Post Animal founding member Joe Keery — unsheath and sit down at the kitchen table, clink their glasses in celebration, and dig in. At this moment, re-fueling via a meal of decadent Risotto made by their friend and cabin steward Malcolm Brown, the Knights at the Roundtable break bread, on this, one of the thirty days they’ve spent crafting their new album.
This scene is an apt introduction to the IRON cabin sessions, where communal home-cooked dinners and moments of shared laughter, outside of synergetic musical ponderings, were king. “Making this record was easy for the soul, as much as it wasn’t intellectually easy, because we were working so hard on it,” Hirshland explained, reminiscing on long nights hammering out tricky melodies, cut with back porch beers and board games. But, as the story goes, making a record wasn’t initially in the cards for Post Animal, and the band hadn’t even planned to reprise their six-piece formation in the first place.
Presently spread across Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, the members of Post Animal haven’t made a record six-strong since 2017’s break-out When I Think of You in a Castle, shortly followed by Keery’s departure from the band that same year (both to pursue acting, and later, to begin his indie-pop solo musical venture Djo). Post Animal hasn’t been stagnant by any means since then, either (their last album, Love Gibberish, hit shelves in 2022), and the six core members (including Keery) have always stayed in touch in the midst of it all and despite the odds stacked against long-distance adult friendships — even final album track, a soft synth-laden epilogue entitled “Iron”, speaks on this predicament; the fear of going separate ways from those you care about, not for want but due to circumstance and the passing of time.
After many years away, a spontaneous and heartwarming 2024 rendezvous between band members past and present at a Brooklyn Post Animal tour stop thankfully induced a level of nostalgic camaraderie that bred plans to dust off the old line-up. From there, a collective trip to that aforementioned cabin in the woods saw days of jam sessions becoming more: “The first time we got together, we were saying to each other that we had no idea if we would even write a single song together”, Hirshland recalled, noting how he would’ve been okay had nothing happened creatively, if it meant they just got to spend time together. “But ideas started flowing so quickly that, by the end of the first ten days, we were already planning the next session, and the rest was history”.
Influenced both by the group’s initial sonic roots and by the new techniques they’ve each gained over the last few years, IRON is injected with the hyper-driven chugging garage rock prowess that characterized much of their former releases, but with the welcome addition of a homely “slice of life” quality via colorful power-pop melodies and shimmering key-driven instrumental interludes (“Menu”, “Malcolm’s Cooking”).
This motif was introduced first with “Last Goodbye”, as strong a comeback statement as they come — despite being a bittersweet swan song for a dwindling relationship, it’s a resonant earworm (not unlike the Jeff Buckley track that shares its name), blossoming into 70s rock’n’roll nostalgia with a jovial guitar-drums-bass hook and sing-along Allman Brothers sensibilities, encouraged by layered harmonies on which the full band contributes. Made clear in moments such as this, IRON’s greatest strength is the air of brotherhood woven throughout its tracklisting, a Post Animal cornerstone re-invigorated in the moments shared amongst band members behind the scenes, and depicted via the Tintype portrait on the album’s cover — where the six don medieval wares and stare down the lens as a unified front (“I don’t think anyone’s surprised that Dalton is our Legolas”).
As Hirshland continued, the IRON sessions felt natural, familiar, and inspiring, lending to the most fun the group has ever had creating together; and it can be heard in the recordings. For one, the “muppet section” (as Hirshland calls it) on “Pie In the Sky” finds Keery leading on vocals, with the rest of the band doing their best imitations of characters from the Jim Henson series against a backdrop of sunshine-drenched neo-electric licks. On this track and others (such as the stomping adlib-ridden tall tale of “Dorein Kregg”), one can picture the boys awaiting their turn to sing, as if the mic were on a Lazy Susan atop their Roundtable, while simultaneously fighting the urge to break into fits of laughter in the pause between takes. “There was a lot of benefit to how comfortable we are with each other”, Hirshland recalled with a smile.
Only with that level of ease and friendship could a band cultivate these moments of unapologetic joy and also achieve a stirring level of thematic intimacy, as tackling life’s greatest mysteries and certainties via song (as they’ve done here) is really only possible with the support and company of those you trust most. In turn, IRON isn’t just catchy and truly enjoyable; it’s deeply meaningful both in words and concept, laying out the red carpet for a Post Animal that’s more open, full-hearted, and enlightened than ever before.
For example, where “Maybe You Have To” makes space for the gloom of mortality, it simultaneously accepts the inevitability of loss (beginning and ending with a personal voicemail from Toledo’s grandmother); meanwhile, “What’s A Good Life” questions the validity of one’s accomplishments and goals in the face of opposing expectation, and still manages to come out on top (“for the first time in my life / it’s fine that I’m not perfect”). Similarly, anthemic self-assured banger “Setting Sun” — with lyrics such as “Not gonna let another day go by without lookin’ up” and “It’s time to make up for the years spent idlin’” — serves as a thesis statement on resilience against a chorus of rhythmic hoots and hollers, perfectly fitting for a euphoric on-stage sing-along as seen on the Djo-Post Animal tour that’s continued globally throughout this year.
As Hirshland concluded: “Ultimately, it’s really a friendship record, written together through the lens of our shared lives together, about how we’ve somehow always returned to one another. You can almost hear how this record really just came about as a result of this thing going on in our lives, not because of anything else”.
Persisting past creative burnout and returning to embrace the unbridled friendship at the core of Post Animal’s story, IRON begins a new chapter for the band, one of endless possibility and even more pivotal memory-making. Whether in the near or distant future, whatever they come up with next is sure to strike an emotional cord with this very fact alone.
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