For a young band like Iron Void, their music proudly influenced by pioneers like Black Sabbath and Pentagram, formula is not a dirty word. Slavish imitation will stunt any band's artistic potential and, even if they are powerful in a live setting, bands like this rarely inspire the sort of commercial devotion from fans that build long-lasting careers.
They dodge the pitfalls of such influence by virtue of talent, conscientious songwriting while, nevertheless, benefiting from the association and gratified by playing in a style they love.
Low-fi or not, I loved the album's sound from the first few notes of "Tyrant's Crown" on. The thick, even slightly muffled, production fills the music with added density. Iron Void builds the song around a guttural, galloping riff that rides the back of nimble percussion. Naturally, this guitar part is key to the song's appeal, but the song exhibits a number of underrated strengths enriching the overall whole. The vocals are very solid and, despite having learned long ago that looking for literary merit in metal lyrics is usually a fool's errand, Iron Void's lyrical strength surprised me here.
Iron Void proves their skill for creating sturdy, interesting arrangements with "I Am War". An appealing inevitability heard in the best metal defines the music; seamless transitions assure the various riffs never sound shoehorned together and each section resolves itself in a satisfying way. The drummer peppers the song with subtle rhythmic touches highlighting the band's penchant for leaving understated, distinctive signatures in each song. "The Mad Monk" opens as a mid-tempo drag, but the band explores a handful of tempos throughout the song. This is the album's first "look" at Iron Void in full power mode and the riff largely abandons the melodic flair heard in earlier songs. This isn't a weakness. The grinding crunch works well with the song's restless movement between tempos and, in tandem with the strong lyrics, creates a gray, claustrophobic atmosphere.
"Those Who Went Before" is plodding, minor key joy from the start. There is an obvious debt to Black Sabbath here, but again, Iron Void distinguishes themselves from their influences. The lyrics are tighter than a clinched fist - not a single word is wasted. Their clarity and poetic suggestiveness are, likewise, key elements in why this relatively short song plays, nevertheless, like a quasi-epic. "Own Worst Enemy" has a sleek musical attack that wastes no time getting its point across. We've certainly heard songs with similar sentiments since the era of the Delta bluesman, but Iron Void work within this well-established tradition with fresh energy and a refreshing lack of irony.
The muscular and melodic riff opening the apocalyptic "Black Mirror" promises a lot and the band delivers. It's one of the album's high points and I found myself fascinated by how such a young, guitar driven band plays with such calm confidence. The lyrics are never overwrought, avoid cliché, and benefit from a cool, dispassionate vocal. The guitar break blazing in a little after the halfway point is worth the price of admission alone. The bass riff bubbling from the black in the first seconds of "Outlaw" gives way to a massive guitar riff flattening everything in its path. I hear this song as an uniquely Iron Void "blues", rugged and street tough. The band specializes in a relatively straightforward sort of music but demonstrates their chops in other ways - for example, the abrupt turns and stops in tempo. "Necropolis (C.O.T.D.)" superbly marries two familiar elements, metal and horror, into a strongly cinematic song. While some might complain a zombie song is, perhaps, a little trendy at this cultural moment, Iron Void is dealing out some musical rehash of a Waking Dead episode and their smart songwriting gives this the quality of an individual take on the subject matter. Another well-constructed melodic guitar solo is the song's highlight.
"The Burden of Regret" is another of the album's peaks. A song that, perhaps, that best illustrates how a listener cannot listen to the first fifteen to thirty seconds of an Iron Void song and make anything like an informed judgment about its quality. This is a band seemingly overflowing with ideas and their songs demand a complete hearing. The lyrics once again tread into some familiar territory for popular song but avoid the trite by containing a strong narrative thrust and control of the language verging on the poetic. However, the singing for this set of lyrics needed a stronger emotive edge than it gets here. If a band has a complete package of skills, like Iron Void does, it behooves them to explore each skill to its limits. The closer, "Xylanthia", is a beautifully evocative instrumental that suggested images of mist-bound rivers and oddly colored skies to me as I first listened. Any group capable of covering the long distance between this and the opener, "Tyrant's Crown", is a musical outfit with substantial depth.
The subtitle for this review should be "Or How Jason Learned To Stop Worrying And Listen To Iron Void". This outstanding debut will lead to more and better.
Words: J. Hillenburg
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