When Post Animal stepped into the studio for their new album, it was the first time all six original members were in the studio together for nearly a decade. Three band members had recently relocated away from Chicago, not to mention Joe Keery having left the band in 2017 to focus on acting. In the end they started right back up at the beginning, rediscovering that uncompromising closeness of connection they all shared from those endless hours spent in practice spaces and the late-night diner runs that follow. Prolonged stretches of time together not only reinforced the strength of their friendship—it reinvigorated their music. “If you want to get one hour of good painting in, you have to have four hours of uninterrupted time,” David Lynch once said. The product of a few straight weeks together, IRON (due July 25th) not only finds them reunited with Keery but is the embodiment of 30 days of camaraderie and unbound musical exploration, their renewed connection ironclad.

After 2022’s sublime Love Gibberish, their first independent record, Post Animal found themselves sunk deeper into their work than ever before. They toured extensively, both on their own and with UK psych band Temples. By the time things settled down, guitarist Javi Reyes and drummer Wesley Toledo were back home in Chicago, while guitarist Matt Williams moved to Los Angeles, bassist Dalton Allison decamped for Ithaca, and multi-instrumentalist Jake Hirshland relocated to Brooklyn. “There was some burnout happening,” Allison says.

But then Keery showed up at a New York tour stop, and the idea was hatched that they cut another record—all six band members together again, for the first time since 2017’s When I Think of You in a Castle. “That was near the start of Stranger Things, and now with it kind of coming to an end in my own life, we all felt it’d be great to do something like that again,” Keery says. “It was a labor of love.” The group focused on the experience and ignored any pressure. “We all agreed that even if we went and just hung out, we’d be happy with it,” Toledo says. “There was a real positivity and optimism among us.” They would set up camp at the Indiana home of their friends, tucked into some woodlands.

The creativity driven by comfort is apparent from the opening instrumental track; “Malcolm’s Cooking” was recorded in part on a balcony overlooking the foliage, complete with the humid wind, insect whirring, and euphorically clinking bottles. Lead single “Last Goodbye” follows, a slow-loping look at the end of a relationship, a point in time somehow both uneasy and familiar. There’s a vintage AM radio glow to follow-up “Pie in the Sky”, a giddy-up bass and thumping percussion giving way to layered harmony. “Make me wanna sell my soul for just a bit of your shine/ How am I gonna fill this hole, if your heart ain’t mine?” they sigh in a fit of honest, unadorned adoration.

“This record felt like a revitalization of our friendships and our band,” Hirshland says. “We always work collaboratively, but it’s amazing how reintroducing Joe into the mix brought back that dynamic from 2017.” Keery agrees, noting both how close they’ve remained despite so much change. “I was just appreciative to be spending this time, knowing we might not get another chance,” he says. “The record reflects that enjoyment, and you can feel the fun.”

Each of the six musicians brought in song ideas and took their turn taking the lead. In perhaps the most intimate example, “Maybe You Have To” opens with a voicemail of Toledo’s abuela prior to her passing, with the glistening track that follows staring down the pain of that loss. But even when IRON touches on heavy themes, Post Animal finds fluidity and strength in their compositions—a clear result of sharing so much time together. “It’s a return to ourselves, but down the road, feeling better than we ever have,” Reyes says.

The album uses that honed edge to push and pull at genre threads, from synthpop to folk, vintage radio rock to twitchy psychedelia. Whether in the tumbling, interlocking eighth notes of “Common Denominator” or the cloudlike, piano-driven title track, IRON lives deliciously in its moment. Or, as Hirshland explains it: “This is an exploration of being alive and in this group of friends.”

IRON puts the listener directly into the room with the band, freewheeling and experimental yet played with precision. That atmosphere should be palpable as the band hits the road with Keery’s Djo project, Toledo and Reyes pulling double duty as well by working in his backing band—the whole group getting to spend even more time together. “All of these creative forces coming together, it was like iron sharpening iron,” Allison says. “When we’re in proximity with one another, we make each other better.”