IRON Chic are set to play The Joiners tonight, and here they explain how their new record is two things: both the same as previous releases, and absolutely incomparable to them.

You Can’t Stay Here addresses the same questions that have plagued the Long Island punk group from their outset – anxiety, depression, relationships, substance abuse, life, death, what it means and why we’re forced to experience them.

But this album is punctured with grief and devastation and while these are all familiar concepts, they’re relayed with an added desperation, and the claustrophobic inescapable reality.

There’s no punchline, no immediate silver-lining.

Jason Lubrano, the band’s singer, is aware of the absence: “On past records, we generally try to throw in an optimistic note here and there. That might be the one thing that this record is lacking.”

That pervasive darkness goes back to the record’s title, a line from the song, You Can’t Stay Safe.

It’s a manifestation of anxiety, a permanent lack of peace.

“No matter what you do in this world, there’s always some danger or something lurking there for you,” Lubrano sighs. “Even when you think you’re okay, you might not be. That was just sort of like a desperation there.”

It’s hard to not hear this as a product of the loss the band suffered in 2016, when Rob McAllister, rhythm guitarist, died unexpectedly. They are still coming to terms with his passing.