Iron Age- The Sleeping Eye

I first became familiar with this Texas band back in late '05 or '06 some time. I was managing the now defunct Righteous Jams and they loved these dudes, and played with them a bit. I'm pretty sure there was at least part of a US tour, and they were a semi-last minute fill in for another band on the ill-fated (and final) RJ Euro tour. I could be wrong, but I think a couple of these guys may have actually played IN RJ at the end of that tour. Stranger things have happened. Anyway, so I've known about these guys, and always thought they were an OK NYHC influenced hardcore band. Nothing really to write home about, but decent enough, although the quality on some of their earlier recordings left much to be desired. I heard they were working on a new album which shocked me, since the shelf life on hardcore bands seems to be somewhere between 6 months and 2 years. The fact that it was 3-4 years later stunned me. But what I would come to find out is, this was no ordinary hardcore band.

Not sure if I heard THE SLEEPING EYE first or the new they'd signed to one of my favorite labels, TEEPEE, out of NYC. Now, the odd thing in this equation is, with the exception of ANNIHILATION TIME, there's really nothing that comes close to "hardcore" on this label. I was still kind of surprised ANNIHILATION TIME were on the label. TEEPEE releases some killer stoner/doom/psych type stuff; shit, even some borderline drugged out country shit. Not at all the label I would expect to be doing the new IRON AGE. Again, I would discover, this was no ordinary hardcore band, nor hardcore record.

First off, the song lengths were way too long to be standard "hardcore" and they certainly aren't. Nor are the structures. The album's received a good amount of press in metal circles as part of the "thrash revival" (along with bands like TOXIC HOLOCAUST, MUNICIPAL WASTE). I don't think that does the record justice, either. I can hear what seems to be a strong METALLICA influence, as well as COC. And in structure, there's definitely old METALLICA showing through. There's "lots of parts," which I'd normally use as a criticism, but not in this case. It all works. The record, in some ways reminds me of a more metal version of their contemporaries FUCKED UP. Again, not a bad thing.

The record seems to really be crossing over to different scenes, and these guys deserve it. I'd be very surprised if we don't see some big things from these guys in the future. They also seem to be touring quite a bit on this (although I keep missing them), so that's certainly going to help them.

My Top List for 2009

Every year around this time, I start to ponder doing a "Best of" list for the year. Some years, people actually ask to see them, or, even more odd, ask me to do them for their sites/blogs/yadda yadda. I'm always puzzled by whether or not I should do one. Truth is, I usually start and fart out half way through.

Now, there's a few fundamental issues with these: First, there's no way I, or anyone else has heard EVERYTHING out there, (even within a certain genre) so it's more of a "Favorites of the year" as opposed to "best of." Plus, every year, without fail, there's SOMETHING out there I meant to check out, usually by an artist I really dig, but just for some reason, don't get to hear.

There's also the issue of when things are released. Every year, I try to put a list together and forget something was released that year, and vice versa, think something released the previous year was from this one. I've been looking at a lot of "year end" lists in recent weeks, and the top 5s, GENERALLY are cluttered with releases from the past 4-6 months, whereas, releases from the first part of the year are lower, if on the list at all in many cases.

So, since I now have this handy-dandy blog, I'm going to be posting a "My Favorite Releases" list over the next week or so. Since I tend to get very wordy at times, I'm going to do them individually, as opposed to as a list. Plus, I'm not doing 10, nor are they in any specific order. Hell, some may not even be albums; I could add some films, TV shows, events, etc.

Stay tuned for my next exciting entry.