Released By : Ripple Music
Genre : Proto-Metal, Heavy Blues Rock
Link : http://ripple-music.com/ripple/?p=67
Tracklist:
- What Love Left
- Saga
- The Traveler
- A Different Game
- Angel Woman
- Southern Sky
- Falling Down
- It’s Easy
- My Way Down
- Love Is Blind
- Targets
- See Them Fall
- Closing In
The last few years or so have seen many, many classic bands from yesteryear resurface for another tilt at success. A combination of more willing indie-based record labels and a better ability to reach people via the internet becoming a part of daily life have both contributed to this and it seems that it will be a trend that continues into the future.
One of latest in a long line of said retro acts is Scotland’s own IRON CLAW, a proto-metal band that found quite the local following between 1969 to 1974. Since then the band has remained largely inactive and unheard of until 2009 when Rockadrome Records released a compilation album of demos and recordings the band had done back in the day. While this release did drum up some interest from rock music aficionados, it was still at best more like a bootleg release quality-wise. Now forty or so years on, newly formed classic rock record label Ripple Music have singed the band for an album of all-new recordings.
Classic rock is the standard definition here, but there is a real heavy blues vibe going on and a definite nod toward early days heavy metal too leaving the album sounding something like a cross between Ozzy era BLACK SABBATH, early WHITESNAKE, DEEP PURPLE and a bit of BAD CO. thrown in too. The feel of the album is raw and natural while still sounding full and professional which should go a long way to pleasing the purists, the guitars are up loud and as dirty as you could possibly want and recently added lead vocalist Gordon Brown has all the makings of a great singer and his style is absolutely perfect for this kind of music.
I will say though that the album does start feeling a little bit samey toward the end and I do think the product as a whole would have benefitted from being two or three tracks shorter in overall length. I also feel that a release like this should have come with a booklet, as there is plenty to say about IRON CLAW and it would have been a perfect opportunity to have some comments from the band and some old photos etc. etc. But those are two relatively minor drawbacks for what is otherwise one of the most earnest and accurate portrayals of seventies proto-metal that I’ve heard in quite a while. Buy it if you are a fan of any of the bands mentioned in this review and also as a great counterpart to the DEMON’S EYE release from a bit earlier this year.
Written By ZeeZee
Rating : 8/10
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