To be quite frank, it felt like I was cleaning while Motorhead was playing some seering hot metal festival. From the first second of 'Jungle Speed' to right before the applause at the end of 'Pancho Villa (live)' Lemmy and co got stuck in my head. 'Punk induced thrash rock 'n' roll speed metal' is the main ingredient for this trio, borrowing a lot of elements from the godfathers of hard rock. Most of the songs drive on a fierce tempo (think 'Ace Of Spades') and raw, raspy vocals.
Other bands I'm often reminded of our Southern Voodoo, Nashville Pussy and Peter Pan Speedrock. Unsurprisingly, all those bands have also been inspired by the chain smoking and whiskey tanking rock 'n' roll diety. Furthermore, here and there flashes from the Ramones and even Slayer come to mind. The only exception seems to be the heavy blues song 'Burning On The Giant Chair'.
Variation is another thing that is quite rare on this album, but once again that doesn't matter. It's all in good fun, and convincing enough to remain interesting. Besides, in the seventies (the era that mostly inspired Iron Bastards), there was little use for variation. People just wanted to rock, preferably hard. Iron Bastards rocks, that's for sure dammit. No doubt in my mind that these guys will cause a brutal party everywhere they go.
What Iron Bastards do, is far from original of course. Some people would probably categorise this as a Motorhead-clone. However, in the modern day music industry it's pretty damn hard to be unique or renewing. That problem can be solved by playing the original as good as possible and that's where these guys definitely come in. They play their songs with an impressive intensity and loads of energy, something that undoubtedly work perfectly on stage.
So yes, I recommend this album to anyone who likes that good ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll, but I mostly recommend checking out these guys live, secretly hoping that they will come over to their friendly, number 1 on the Fifa list, neighbours soon. Rock on, my friends...
Serge