Buried Treasure Shall Rise
If you’ve never seen it, Iron Man‘s merch stand makes a hell of an impression. A case that opens to several panels, the shirts, CDs and LPs that the Maryland doom stalwarts have on offer rest securely behind a transparent sheet of plastic, almost like a museum display. I’d happened into this wonder of hands-on marketing on I don’t even know how many occasions prior, but last month at Eye of the Stoned Goat 2 in Delaware (review here), it was the Iron Man Shall Rise demo that caught my eye among all the other fodder for window-shopping.
They probably didn’t think much of it at the time, but the Iron Man Shall Rise demo turned into more of a landmark than Iron Man could or really should have imagined at the time. Its three tracks — “Jumping in Head First,” “Time is the Enemy” and Juggernaut Too (Perpetual Force)” — represent the final appearance of vocalist Joe Donnelly in the band. For that alone, Iron Man Shall Rise should be a noteworthy release, but the tracks were recorded in 2010 by John Brenner of Revelation/Against Nature and released on his Bland Hand Records imprint, made especially for an appearance at that year’s Doom Shall Rise festival in Germany.
That appearance didn’t happen, and by the time Iron Man put out the Dominance EP a year later, it was current frontman Dee Calhoun on the mic, having been announced as the band’s new singer in January 2012 following the band’s appearance in October 2011 at Hammer of Doom, also a German fest. But even as Donnelly‘s swansong, Iron Man Shall Rise is hardly centered around his performance. Rather, of all the Iron Man discs I’ve heard, this one is the most about guitarist “Iron” Al Morris III, and particularly the rich blanket of fuzz he weaves with his classically doomed tone. Along with bassist Louis Strachan, Morris‘ all-too-underappreciated sound is at the fore on the shuffling “Jumping in Head First,” as Donnelly and then-drummer Dex Dexter are somewhat buried behind, and when the six-stringer kicks in with a lead, even Strachan takes a backseat. As does the rest of the planet.
It’s not necessarily a surprise that Brenner, himself a veteran of the Maryland/D.C. doom scene, would want to highlight Morris‘ work on this demo recording, but in light even of Iron Man‘s EPs over the last couple years — the aforementioned Dominance (review here) and Att hålla dig över, which followed in 2012 — Iron Man Shall Rise has a different sound than anything the band has done, the layers of riffs and backing leads in “Time is the Enemy” giving way to the consuming fuzz of “Juggernaut Too (Perpetual Force),”
presumably a sequel to the track “Juggernaut” from 1999’s Generation Void. Here again, Morris‘ guitar work is consuming, an initial lead making way for the verse before Donnelly‘s half-snarled chorus.
Save for a few fills, Dexter‘s drums are more or less inaudible behind the guitar and bass, and that Morris lead returns to its prominent position at the end of the track, which is more or less just a stop. It’s a curious kind of release — very much a demo — and if you think you’ve heard every side of their sound that Iron Man have to offer and you haven’t heard these tracks, then you’re mistaken. In another dimension, Iron Man Shall Rise came out with “kvlt” marketing and got the band hipster cred. Seriously. It happened.
