You’ve got to listen to the new album by I Plead Irony. If you haven’t discovered this phenomenon yet, let me tell you, it’s a three-member alternative rock band made up of Rauf Jordan, Paul McDonald, and Lawrence Arnold. The three are long-time friends who have been making music together in different forms since around 2004. Their sound blends alternative rock with punk and blues influences. What makes them interesting is their mix of dark themes, dry humour, and a fascination with contradictions. Their previous albums include ‘This Statement Is False’ and ‘The Solution Is The Problem’. The band’s approach to music feels instinctive, with ideas being jammed, pulled apart, and rebuilt together. They also have a very casual, friendship-driven dynamic, which keeps the music from feeling overly serious.
“Where dark thoughts meet bright riffs, ‘This Monologue Conversation’ finds its own rhythm.”
‘This Monologue Conversation’ immediately feels like an album made by musicians who are at the top of their game. The fact that the collection took ten years to complete makes the listening experience and the story more interesting. It was nearly finished before distance and the pandemic put the band on hold, but they eventually returned to the songs because they still believed they deserved to be heard. The 11-track album explores identity, conformity, fear, constraints, self-destruction, progress, and reversal. The tracklist itself is so dynamic, with titles like ‘Architect Effect’, ‘Inside The Lines’, ‘Undone’, ‘History’, ‘Death By Internal Combustion’, and ‘Falling Upwards’. I like how the album can deal with darker subjects without becoming emotionally exhausting.
There is a dry, playful humour running through the band’s identity that gives the heavier themes some breathing space. The alternative rock foundation keeps the album energetic, while the punk and blues fringes add character to the sound. The album feels less like a carefully constructed “statement” and more like three friends making the music they genuinely enjoy. The contradiction between serious themes and the band’s laid-back personality is one of the album’s biggest strengths. Personally, the story behind the album makes it more enjoyable because these songs clearly survived for a reason.
Catch the muse here:
Want to discover more such similar tracks? Check out our Rock Muse playlist on Spotify:
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