Initial Thoughts

Welcome back to Dissection Table, where we pry open albums, bathe in their fluids, and subsequently get sick on love for the strange feast various obscure bands provide. Tonight, the lights are low, the rain here in small-town Niigata is pouring, and the operating table looks ready for a new album to get strapped onto. Our philosophy—as always—remains the same: if you’re willing to experiment and get a little messy, you’ll probably find something worth cherishing. Without further ado, let’s get dirty. 

As my section on the About page illustrates, I’m a student of history, and particularly, environmental history and the history of science. To make a long story of those two fields very short, there’s a lot of concern amongst historians right now about the accelerating collapse of ecological stability and the so-called Anthropocene (which is a proposed geological era in which human activity is the dominant force shaping the planet). Rather than being defined by beautiful, futuristic progress, the prevailing image is one of plastic-clogged oceans, mass extinction, and the quiet horror of knowing we are fucked as a species. The collapse is getting faster and faster and harder and harder to prevent. In my life, even in quiet Japan—famous for its supposed “cleanliness”—the recycling bin overflows with dirty bottles that cannot possibly be salvaged (please read Waste: Consuming Postwar Japan; the idea that Japanese are inherently nature-loving and anti-waste has actually become a very destructive stereotype). Of course, the problem was even worse in my American home: highways clogged with waste, smog-barfing smokestacks, and an adamant mistrust of science. 

In this hellscape apocalypse, pray tell—what will our mutant children dance to?

Today I'm examining Echo Palace (2023), an album that sounds like a garage rock band was fed one too many energy drinks and began doomscrolling environmental collapse on TikTok. With a band name sounding like the necromancer cousin to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Iguana Death Cult immediately signals a love of theatrics, absurdity, and a willingness to make the apocalypse more colorful. It also sports indie post-punk influences, but honestly, genre is difficult to pin down here. It’s the opposite of formulaic, even occasionally bleeding into improvisational jazz territory. In terms of concept, this is an album about living in a world mutating faster than we are, and yet, in many ways, it isn’t changing at all. There’s a paradox at the heart of Echo Palace’s lyrics. The beautiful palace society thought it was building by marketing the American dream has turned out false. The past echoes infinitely into a grim present. At least it all sounds very beautiful. 

Song-by-Song Breakdown

The album opens with “Paper Straws,” complete with some stellar guitar work and deep yet playful synths that almost sound like something squirming around in a chemical vat. In fact, the entire song has a very cartoonish vibe, with the vocals having a quirky but somewhat exaggerated quality that is reminiscent of Jack Stauber’s elastic delivery, particularly in “Gettin’ My Mom On”—a song that has similar wet-sounding synths too. Content-wise, the song is dripping with irony and humor, especially with the line “I am the paper straw that saved the world.” Environmental anxiety filters through sarcasm to make the topic easier to digest. It shows clever songwriting talents and a willingness to balance humor with modern society's pervasive sense of dread for the future.

The killer beats continue with the album’s namesake, “Echo Palace.” The track ricochets effortlessly between energetic, scrappy garage-rock vocals, mellow blended vocal harmonies, and instrumental stretches that allow the song to breathe. With so much to balance, it’s impressive it doesn’t come across as scattered. Rather, it sounds dynamic and exciting. Tucked behind all of it—especially near the end—is a weird synth sound effect that sounds almost like a neon jungle bird’s call. Like “Paper Straw,” this helps to give the song an otherworldly feel.

Leaning into the uniqueness of the vocals and its garage rock influences, “Pusherman” ups the album’s already righteous energy alongside lyrics skeptical of humanity’s intentions. It’s the type of song that gets the blood racing. I found it impossible not to sing the chorus, especially “in the future / I’ll be a drug pusher / another species / on the brink of evolution.” To me, those lyrics illustrate the album’s fixation on humans mutating because of the effects of a chaotic, poisoned world. People are evolving, sure, but into something feral, unstable, and desperate. Who demanded progress had to be what current humans might denote as “good?” It brings me back to my days getting a master’s in history under the tutelage of Japanese historian Dr. Brett L. Walker. In his magnum opus, Toxic Archipelago, he ends on a horrific portrait of humanity: humans will survive the planet’s destruction, sure, but in unrecognizable form. Not enlightened nor improved but adapted and corroded. Will our grotesque compromise as a species be worth it in the end? Well, I’ll let you decide that one for yourself.

“Sunny Side Up” zaps synths straight from the 80s to the present around the quarter mark and pairs them alongside staccato, post-punk vocal shenanigans. With a cheeky reference to Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” alongside other regrets for the American work machine, there’s a clear distaste for the brutality of traditional jobs that pay little, suck time away, and leave people exhausted. It’s both a critique and a call for change.

Other promises of the American dream are critiqued in “Sensory Overload,” which reads like a laundry list of unfulfilled promises. There’s a jittery nervousness here, with a sax that slips in and out of the song, eventually staying to usher in its end. The repeated exchange of “up and down and feed my / larval mind” suggests a person trapped and forced in an awkward in-between stage. There’s evolution, as referenced in other songs, but only to something half-formed and incomplete. Very rat-in-a-cage-esque in terms of energy. 

The guitars sharpen into clarity alongside the vocals in “Conference to Conference,” shedding much of their earlier grunge. The lyrics are coated in a hazy reverb effect that sounds vaguely like poorly ripped 80s vinyl. A few times, the song breaks into spoken word segments before horn-like synths slide in to thicken the atmosphere. The song mutates regularly, with the genre dissolving like smoke. Lyrically and sonically, it captures a post-pandemic world captured in a horrific cycle of déjà vu. History loops, and nothing is learned by anyone. There was no phoenix birthed from Covid: just disappointment and an impending sense of doom.

“I Just Want a House” leans harder into the 80s influences with shimmery synths and clean, spaced-out guitars alongside a start-and-go rhythm that keeps everything hovering like a needle about to drop. The vocal delivery is great here: frantic, expressive, and nimble. I smiled when I heard “(One for one) All for none / disconnected but satisfied / as long as the geese lay golden eggs,” which feels like it hits a little too close to home given recent politics in the US. I’m thankful to be in Japan right now, but even then, like the wild energy of the song suggests, there’s a ticking time bomb about to go off everywhere. The energy in this song is the kind of slow build you can feel in your chest before it all explodes in driving drums and soaring guitars that feel like they’re trying to outrun each other. The synths are neon and ecstatic, melting perfectly into the final plea: “I want to know, how much do you know? / I want to know, who told you so?”

“Oh No” reads like the distorted, twisted mirror to The New Eve’s “The New Eve.” I feel like if this song was called “The New Adam,” I would not have batted an eye. That isn’t to say it’s a triumph for men, but rather the opposite, with lyrics pointing out the false promises of patriarchy. Someone has built their entire life around an identity of being admired in quintessential masculine terms that cannot be sustained. There’s a franticness to escape the constructed performance of perfect manhood. In the end, it all dissolves into improvisational jazz. Doesn’t all manhood?

The pace slows a tad with “Rope a Dope,” though that isn’t saying much given the handclaps and the band’s signature cartoonish/shouty vocal delivery, which keeps things animated and punchy. In many ways, though, this song doesn’t bring much new to the table that isn’t presented in other songs. At least the synths remain killer (but then again, what synths won’t I happily slurp up?). The bridge is also a standout moment: the electric guitar reappears doing backflips of unpredictability, though I wish it lasted just a smidge longer before the vocals suddenly interrupt it. Not a bad song by any means, but also not quite as memorable as the killer “Oh No” that preceded it. 

After my tepid response to “Rope a Dope,” I worried the album might be falling into the “fatigue zone.” You can imagine my surprise, then, when the pace suddenly entered the freezer and xylophone-like synths alongside cowbell began ringing out. I’m so excited we’re still cooking here, and definitely, “Heaven in Disorder” fucking cooks. Surprisingly, it brings Oingo Boingo’s song “Skin” to mind. Now, before I get canceled for making such a wild comparison, hear me out: both songs are deeply introspective, haunting, and yet calmly theatrical. The deeper vocal range also reminds me of Danny Elfman’s unprecedented ability to adjust his range (which is one hell of a compliment). It’s probably my second favorite on the track, which I really wasn’t expecting this late. There’s also more improvisational jazz in here. Jesus, Iguana Death Cult, leave some genre for the rest of us!

If you thought rock was dead, it revives in “Radio Brainwave.” As always, the writing is beyond superb, and hey, if you’re going to give me grand, Star Trek-reminiscent synths alongside political commentary, I’m about as sold as a gal can be. Lyric-wise, it reminds me a lot of The Psychedelic Furs on their self-titled 1980 album. The sparkly synths are the perfect, luscious send-off to the album. 

Conclusions

Echo Palace is messy—a garage-rock sermon for a neon creature of sludge circling the drain (but the monster was our own creation, and it’s also somehow us). Is this analogy making any sense? Iguana Death Cult makes writing poetry look effortless, but it’s hard in practice, I’m realizing. Anyway, Echo Palace dances on the edge of ecological despair without surrendering to it. Do not go gentle into that good night, or whatever they say. And, for the low price of $9.99 on Bandcamp, you too can own the amazing eco-focused album that is Echo Palace. Go on. Go feed the mutation. And maybe buy a metal straw while you’re at it!