I Plead Irony have spent roughly two decades making music together, but This Monologue Conversation is proof that some things take their sweet time. Ten years in the making, the trio’s third album arrives carrying plenty of heavy questions about humanity, conformity, fear and self-destruction, yet it never sounds like three friends have forgotten how to enjoy themselves. Rauf Jordan’s bass and vocals, Paul McDonald’s guitars and backing vocals, and Lawrence Arnold’s drums form a musical shorthand built through years of playing together, allowing serious ideas to collide with instinctive, energetic rock.
“Inside the Lines” captures the album’s darker side particularly well. Bustling drums push against grinding, heavy guitars while Jordan’s low, moody voice gives the song a brooding gravity. As the track develops, his vocals rise and soar, and the arrangement becomes increasingly dynamic and intriguing. Originally concerned with the personal boundaries people construct around themselves, its ideas of conformity and liberty take on a much larger resonance when heard through the lens of a world recently shaken by division and fear. The lyrics may have stayed the same, but their meaning evidently did not.
“History” digs even deeper into that unease. Catchy fuzzy guitars give way to brooding layers, thumping drums and splashing cymbals, creating a restless momentum beneath its reflections on progress and humanity’s tendency to move backward as well as forward. There is something almost uncomfortable about how infectious it sounds; the hooks invite you in while the subject matter leaves you questioning where we are actually headed.
Still, This Monologue Conversation is not an album about surrendering to darkness. Its final movement, “Falling Upwards,” turns toward hope through love and connection, cleverly refusing the usual language of heroic redemption.
And perhaps that is the album’s biggest contradiction. It took ten years to finish, but its reason for existing remains wonderfully simple: three friends still enjoy making music together. The record survived distance, disruption, and a pandemic because the songs were worth finishing. At the end of the day, that may be the most convincing argument for hope on the entire album.
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Review by: Naomi Joan