Human Worth – 17th October 2025
Christopher Nosnibor
Ok, so Ian was never a cool name. Growing up in the 80s, I knew a few Ians. Ian sits alongside Gary, Craig, Kevin, Gavin in a list of names that have fallen out of fashion and always seemed to have connotations of lameness. Calling a kid Ian or any of these names almost certainly consigned them to a future or shelf-stacking or low-level supervisory or managerial work.
Not IAN the band, though. Come on Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing! Is a magnificent beast of an album, which, over the course of five monumental tracks – the shortest of which is seven and a quarter minutes long – combine post-rock crescendos with post-metal explorations and spectacularly heavy raging fire.
The first track, ‘Manuel’ is a far cry from Fawlty Towers. There’s nothing comedic about it. Instead it builds… and it builds. Six minutes in, it’s a raging, speaker-shredding, overloading tempest of all-pedals-on-full , heads-down distorting riffery that’s nothing short of annihilative. It’s one of those pieces that leaves you feeling dazed, and with no idea where B was in the route from A to C: all you know is that you have tinnitus and your chest is palpating and you feel like you’ve been battered.
Muttering voices – presumably samples – reverberate amidst a growing drone at the start of ‘Building Pyramids’, and there are hints of Amenra in this slow-burning build, which you just know will erupt sooner or later. And of course, as the tension builds, it becomes apparent it’s going to be later. The suspense brings an ache to the gut. You need the levee to break. But still they push on with the low, slow, crawling doom drone… 4:39: Bam!!! And holy fuck. It’s not simply the slamming of pedals, the stepping up the racket. It’s a full-blown sonic tsunami. ‘Fennel’ is an all-out slugging, sludge-metal rager. Does anyone really like fennel? Even Jamie Oliver? Really? That anniseedy flavour in a meal just feels wrong. I understand the anger… or something. During the second half of the song, the grindy low-end is contrasted with a squalling lead treble frenzy, and the impact is devastating.
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The soft, string-led ‘Selma’ marks a strong contrast. It’s supple and moving, until three minutes in when all feet hit the floor and in an instant everything is blistering wall of guitars and drums which ricochet hard and fast among the riff-driven chaos which has erupted. Shit gets heavy, alright. And then we’re faced with the thirteen-minute finale, ‘Not Erotic / Cop Film’. Initially, I’m transported to the time around 2005 when every other band I saw was post-rock and post-metal didn’t seem to have been invented. Both of these things may be true, but what is certain is that with Come on Everybody, Let’s Do Nothing!, IAN actually do a lot – the album is a genre-splicing and immensely ambitious work which explores deeply the interplay of texture and dynamics: at times graceful and delicate, others face-rippingly furious – and always nothing short of immense.
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Aural Aggravation 