These days the 1960s band IRON BUTTERFLY has virtually become a synonym for the band’s biggest selling album and single “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” I mean who could even think of anything else the band has released, with the exception of heavy psych addicts of course. While true that the band’s 1968 album which has to date over 30 million albums worldwide completely eclipses any other thing the band had released, the band is not only still officially together (albeit in name only) but released a total of six albums from 1968 to 1975.

HEAVY was the band’s debut and although the IRON BUTTERFLY is credited for influencing both progressive rock and the heavy metal scenes that would develop, in 1968 when this album was released, we’re not talking HEAVY in today’s vernacular referring to loud, raucous and quickened but rather 60s style as in “man, that’s heavy!” Yeah here HEAVY refers to cosmically deep which was what the psychedelic 60s were all about of course with some bands a bit more adroit at tapping into their inner cosmic nature than others.

IRON BUTTERFLY was the product of the West Coast psychedelic scene which took over the USA during the latter half of the 1960s however this band emerged from the unexpected conservative city of San Diego. The band’s lineup changed substantially even before this debut was released with this first album of 1968 which appeared in January featuring Doug Ingle (organ, vocals), Ron Bushy (drums), Darryl DeLoach (tambourine, vocals), Jerry Penrod (bass, vocals) and Danny Weis (guitar). Although “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” would quickly follow in June of the same year, the lineup had already been reduced to a quartet with only Bushy and Ingle remaining.

Graced with the coolest and most groovy album cover of the band’s career which depicted a statue of a giant ear, the music itself is nothing really to get overly excited about. While referred to as hard rock retrospectively, this was not even close to the noise level of contemporary bands like Blue Cheer or even some tracks from The Kinks. What HEAVY offers is a 30-minute ride into the world of 60s psychedelic acid rock based on blues rock, beat music and rhythm and blues. The tracks at this point were quite short with most only a couple minutes long.

This is a pleasant slice of late 1960s acid rock with a strong emphasis on dramatic organs and eccentric vocals however the music is basically blues rock that seems like it just got its feet wet in the world of psychedelia. Despite the plaudits the band has received as a proto-prog or proto-metal band, none of those have manifested on this debut album HEAVY which unfortunately doesn’t convey its modern titular connotations. While the music doesn’t exactly blow me away i have to say that i like the moody vocals quite a bit and how can you not possibly love that bitchin cool cover art? THAT’s worth the price of admission alone!

With little competition, TÝR could rightfully be considered the metal kings of the Faroe Islands especially due to the fact no other act has even come close to world wide recognition as this band has when it hit the world of folk-tinged progressive metal in the late 1990s and continues to dominate with its utterly unique stylistic approach that easily sets it apart from all others. After making its debut in 2002 with “How Far To Asgard” and finding an even greater fanbase with the following “Eric The Red,” TÝR has continued to release one album after another of intricately designed progressive metal that narrates the world of Norse mythology, Paganism and Faroese folklore, often exclusively in the Faroese language.

Still going strong after a quarter of a century, TÝR returns in 2024 with its ninth album BATTLE BALLADS which sees the light of day five long years after “Hel.” Continuing their adopted use of power metal which found its way into “By The Light Of The Northern Star” and has only maintained a stronger foothold ever since, BATTLE BALLADS delivers an unmistakable TÝR album with all the expected ventures into Viking folklore, Norse mythology and triumphant battle tales of yore delivered in an energetic, epic and anthemic musical majesty. While TÝR has always consistently delivered a highly original stylistic approach not even close to sounding like any other band, the band’s quality control has been more questionable with some albums failing to warrant much whoopty-doo while other albums holding no punches in blowing you away at every turn.

While BATTLE BALLADS may not prove to be one of the band’s top dog’s in terms of their overacting legacy, this album of 10 tracks at around the 42 minute mark is actually quite the pleasant surprise in that it delivers the most important aspect of all and that is one of maintaining your interest throughout the album’s run with high quality composiitons that offer enough variation without sacrificing all those idiosyncrasies that make TÝR so utterly brilliant. While it’s hard to tell really, guitarist Hans Hammer has replaced Attila Vörös from the previous album and perhaps this small change was just enough of a chemistry tweak to give the band a new lease on life but whatever the case the band sounds like its firing on all pistons this time around. Although no keyboards are credited, there is a clear synthesized presence in the backing atmospheres as well as the occasional symphonic touches.

Unlike some other TÝR albums, BATTLE BALLADS delivers a consistent flow of high quality tracks from beginning to end with excellent compositions that maintained all the quirky time signature deviations that makes the band stand out as well as cranking out a power metal bombast that showcases an exuberant use of twin guitar attacks all dressed up in traditional Faroese folk music flavors. Even lead vocalist Here Joensen sounds like he’s on the top of his game. The band is simply on fire from the first moments of “Hammered” to the last moments of “Causa Latronum Normannorum” consistently delivering that tightrope walk between high octane power metal and more reserved melodic folk metal. The harmonies are top notch and the flow of the album is flawless. Now it is true that TÝR does not deliver anything outside of its established perimeters but then again if a band is so amazingly accomplished at what it does so well and no other band has swooped in to steal its thunder then i for one am quite content with a rather safe album that is done brilliantly than the band desperately trying to grasp straws to become experimental.

There’s no telling when a band will burn out in the 21st century. Some bands formed in the 80s are still going strong while others that emerged only a decade ago have found their wellspring run dry. Whatever the case, the Faroese Viking metal gods seem to have longevity just as the Old Norse ways have themselves consistently found new ways of making themselves known in a world that has changed exponentially and unrecognizably beyond the world of the Vikings. My my tastes, BATTLE BALLADS is a triumphant success for staying on track in a world where it is so easy to get distracted and tempted into other arenas of musical exploration. Luckily this band has maintained the purity of its essence and continues to build on a metal tradition of its own making. Perhaps its the long time between albums that allows the band members to craft its compositions at its own pace or perhaps just the rejuvenating North Sea air but whatever the case TÝR appears to be a force in the greater metal universe that is here to stay for quite some time.

While still in Megadeath, guitarist MARTY FRIEDMAN continued to release solo albums on the Shrapnel Records label after the success of his 1989 shredding bonanza “Dragon’s Kiss” but due to an incessant touring schedule during Megadeth’s most financially successful chapter of its existence he began to burn out on heavy metal and had a major need to use his solo albums to explore a completely new musical dimension that he had never entered before. This began with the 1992 album “Scenes” which to his fans’ surprise eschewed the lightning fast guitar antics that had made him a worldwide celebrity and instead ventured into the world of Japanese melody inspired new age which found him collaborating with the great Kitaro of all people. “Scenes” was quite the departure from his usual repertoire and although brief moments of metal lite still drifted in to the overall equation, the album was clearly designed to be pacifying and soothing as if composing the soundtrack for a Japanese tea garden only with a touch of what came before just to put his personal stamp on it.

Not having gotten the mellowness bug fix quite satiated on that album, FRIEDMAN returned two years later with his next excursion into the world of new age ambient flavored music only taken to the next level with several additional musicians and an upgrade in the compositional fortitude. INTRODUCTION came out at the end of 1994 pretty much released simultaneously with Megadeth’s “Youthanasia” album and once again featured fellow band member drummer Nick Menza in the percussionist’s seat.Along for the ride were pianist / keyboardist Brian BecVar and a few classical musicians including Sachi McHenry on cell, Charlie Bisharat on violin and Nick’s father Don Menza playing the Japanese woodwind shakuhachi who himself was a famous saxophonist as a member of the Buddy Rich band as well as playing with Elvin Jones and Louie Bellson. The end results followed in the footsteps of “Scenes” but INTRODUCTION was a completely different type of album with only a quiet, calming placidly shared as the commonality. FRIEDMAN claims most of the music was written during his endless flight schedule and created so he he could listen to it in order to pacify his hatred of flying.

Defying any true categorization, INTRODUCTION came off as some sort of progressive post-classical minimalist new age lullaby album with intricate melodic developments borrowing an idea or two from traditional Japanese folk musical forms as well as incorporating traditional pop techniques of the American 1950s. The album featured eight distinct tracks that added up to 42 minutes of playing and basically revolved around a catchy intricately deigned melodic flow that implemented the creative use of timbres and musical cadences as the primary methodology of spicing everything up with extended compositional build ons to simulate a verse / chorus / bridge style of compositional flow. The music was sparsely decorated with various pairs of instruments showcasing subtle variations in the same recurring melodies that retained the lullaby effect whether the music delivered an atmospheric new age moment, Western classical minimalism or the occasional moments into the world of guitar based rock that featured the bass and drums with an occasional guitar lick erupting into virtuosity.

The piano based opening “Arrival” sets the stage with alternating parts that allow the music to reprise the same melody only set to differing instrumentation and dynamic shifts. The tracks that follow all offer distinct personalities that showcase FRIEDMAN’s virtuosity delivered in impressive finger-picking skills that culminated the most complex Italian inspired melodies on “Mama.” The creative drop in and drop out effect of the Japanese flute, the violin, cello, piano and rock parts maintained an unpredictable framework within the overall continuity of the melodic process with a few moments of time signature deviations added for the element of surprise. “Bittersweet” began with a detached Japanese flute that slowly ratcheted up the melodic deliveries before with a lugubrious orchestral effect slowly upped the intensity while ultimately culminating in one of the most impressive clean guitar picking solos on the entire album.

“Be” on the other hand begins as one of the most placid tracks of the lot only to make a complete shift into the world of rock with the most dynamic electric guitar workouts on the album. “Escapism” on the other hand nurtures a brilliant compositional flow only to feature an extended improv in rancho relaxo mode only with clever guitar licks offering soul piercing note bends and FRIEDMAN’s obvious deeper connection to the very essence of melody itself. As the album progresses each and every track only offers an utterly instant ear worm with Japanese inspired melodic hooks with MARTY’s most tasteful of guitar bends that sound like their narrating a greater tale behind the scenes. The album culminates in the rather distinct sounding “Siberia” which offers guitar tones and drumming techniques not heard throughout the album. The album delivered all the compositions in surprisingly good taste while maintaining a basic new age placidity without really falling into that world whatsoever. This is the kind of intricately designed mellow music that Buckethead has been striving for for decades and never even come close to the sheer genius of the compositional fortitude laid out on these eight outstandingly beautiful tracks.

Fearing that he was alienating his fanbase completely at this stage, FRIEDMAN would never release these kinds of mellow albums again with future albums returning to the heavy metal basis for shredding and general songwriting. While this album may sound like an absolutely disastrous proposal it is pulled off with so much class it brings tears to my eyes when i experience it. The tasteful use of melodies and how they are forged into a unique compositional wholeness evokes the world of the classical musical geniuses of yore and FRIEDMAN after proving his top dog status as one of the top neoclassical and thrash metal masters of all time displayed how his talents went well beyond such confines of heavy music. This is an album i always think i’m going to outgrow after many years but every time i put it on i’m really just blown away like a was the first time i heard it. If i had only one complaint about the entire album it would be the lazy drumming techniques on the rock oriented sequences but even then they don’t distract from the overall goal. This is an all-instrumental affair with only the beautiful track “Luna” offering an uncredited female voice narrating some poetic prose in the Japanese language thus showcasing FRIEDMAN’s fascination with the Japanese culture almost a decade before he would permanently relocate there. Pure genius this one!

The filthy as fuck sludge metal band from the ugly underbelly of the 90s that nobody in a million years thought would’ve arisen from the ashes due to the unfortunate passing of lead singer John Paul Morrow who passed away in 2002 leaving IRON MONKEY’s two 90s cult classics to stand on their own two feet but hey in the world of metal music one should expect the unexpected and even sacred cows sometimes find new a new form of life in an altered yet somewhat familiar form. While simmering in the sludgy underground, this 90s sludge metal band that followed in the footsteps of the Louisiana scene that found Acid Bath, Eyehategod and Grief forging a new ugly style of metal that chipped off strands of DNA from the world of stoner metal and doom metal and crafted a new ugly Frankenstein brother.

While not the first to engage in the rageful vitriol and distortion-fueled din that classic sludge metal rammed down your ear canals with impunity, IRON MONKEY was certainly one of the pinnacles of the hate fueled reverb-soaked sludgery that possibly caused Morrow’s death from choking on his own hate-filled vocal chords while screaming up a storm. Despite written off and left for dead, the MONKEY escaped captivity from whatever experimental lab facility locked them away and returned to the scene in 2017 with its comeback album “9-13” which found guitarist James David Luke Rushby (now simplified to simply Jim) accompanied by original guitarist Dean Paul James Berry (now truncated to Dean) who swapped out guitars for bass. With no viable replacement of the once great vocalist to be found, Jim simply stepped in and honed his own hateful bile spewing from his vocal chamber and called it good. With the addition of drummer Brigga, the MONKEY was back for the attack like Cesar planning an overthrow of humanity on The Planet of the Apes.

Following in the footsteps of the band’s 2017 comeback, SPLEEN & GOAD proves the resurrection was no one-off and although drummer Brigga has been replaced by Ze Big, this album that emerges seven years later very much sounds like “9-13” as IRON MONKEY left behind all those doom metal glacial moments of sustained feedback and oozing out effect of distortion of pain and focused more on the hardcore punk aspects that were in the band’s plans all along before the great implosion that left the MONKEY broken down and disbanded before a third album could ever emerge. Gone are all those smoke-filled stoner rock moments and also gone are the looming doomy passages that slink and slither like a serpent in the Garden of Eden. The new IRON MONKEY has the need for speed and that is exactly what it delivers with an adrenalized procession of downtuned sludge metal riffing sessions that offer a bit of boogie rock flamboyance to its simian swagger.

A modern day album with a retro throwback approach, SPLEEN & GOAD hosts nine tracks at 53 1/2 minutes and an incessant rampage through its battlefield stampede more focused on the quickened galloping pace of groove metal than the sludge on simmer of the past. The results vary as any veritable IRON MONKEY fan cherishes those classic moments that find the guitar sustain tweaking and freaking all over the place one of the band’s primary charms, lead vocalist Morrow’s unfathomable vocal rage excepted. The new IRON MONKEY in many ways sounds more like Amoebix or the 80s crust punk bands than it does its former self but then again the new IRON MONKEY is only half of the equation and any expectations of past endeavors should be firmly quashed. The new balls to the wall approach of IRON MONKEY 2.0 now finds as many albums under its belt as its original run but there’s little doubt this new rendition will ever eclipse the legendary status the original lineup has earned as one of 90s metal’s best kept secrets for so many decades.

The opening “Misanthropizer” pretty much sets the stage of quickened hardcore riffing frenzies with Rushby’s best Morrow imitation that comes close but delivers no cigar but then again taken on its own the new IRON MONKEY does not disappoint in its mostly Sabbath-free, stoner-free agenda either as the highly adrenalized agenda certainly offers a compelling filthy raw mix of primeval sludgery laced with the more rambunctious leanings of 90s alternative metal. The band retains an obnoxiousness that is guaranteed to piss off all but the true sludge fans out there and has lost none of the frenetic misanthropy as the album charges on like the band never left its sludge metal paradise and despite the mostly punk-fueled procession, occasional deviations do occur such as the rare Sabbath sounding track “The Gurges” charges forth and breaks up the monotony with angry stomps that would find Morrow’s harrowing approval. While i do wish the album was a bit more diverse in its approach, i cannot deny than i’m a sucker for this unbridled raging filth of a musical style and therefore soak it in like a sponge. Overall the classic IRON MONKEY is in no danger of being dethroned by the new but for anyone saying these guys never should’ve reunited misses the point of reviving classic sludge metal in a genre that seems to have gotten too progressive and experimental for its own good at times.

Following the grime of the trench pit sludge metal experience that was the 1997 self-titled debut, IRON MONKEY quickly followed with its punchy sophomore release simply titled OUR PROBLEM, a title that belies its caustic excesses that if played loudly in public would make it everyone’s problem! The band’s second offering has been referred to as the ultimate bar fight music with its vicious anger raging across its 45 minute tantrum induced time length. Once again inspired by the New Orleans scene despite hailing from Nottingham, England, IRON MONKEY shifted gears on OUR PROBLEM and added a more musical element, namely a bluesy Southern metal shuffling effect that gravitated more towards Acid Rain this time around rather than the excess torturous displays of pain and anguish as heard from Eyehategod.

Graced with a better production job this time around thus lifting the album out of the lo-fi claustrophobic swamps of the 8-track debut, OUR PROBLEM was a much more professional sounding album on the Earache label and found the band showered with rave reviews and favorable acceptance although i feel the debut’s lo-fi filth and grime approach were quite appropriate for this style of iconoclastic sludgery. Given the greater emphasis on simple rhythms and melodic shuffles, the reliance on extreme feedback and distortion from the bowels of hell, while still creeping in at strategic spots, was deemphasized for a more Sabbath / stoner metal / Souther metal emphasis thus making OUR PROBLEM a bigger hit with those attached to such musical requirements but in the process lost a lot of the evil as fuck characteristics that made the debut stand out amongst the competition. Despite the hype the band didn’t exactly become the next Alice In Chains and remained a cult favorite for a few more decades.

Despite the more groove oriented leanings, lead vocalist John Paul Morrow had lost none of his demonically possessed vocal style and screams up a storm across this album’s run while the twin guitar provide a sludgy wall of sound and amplification without interfering with the audible bass bantering. Of course the melodic touches also dictated the more favorable drumming practices rather than the savagery of the debut that simply called for the most extreme bombast wherever possible. Falling in line more with popular tastes of the era, OUR PROBLEM was much more raved about than the over-the-top debut which took depressive nascent sludge metal to its most execrable extremes. While lacking the diverse motifs that the debut offered, OUR PROBLEM’s songwriting oriented tracks did allow for the use of dynamic shifts with fast groove based sludgery ceding to slower guitar-free bass moves and doomy time outs from a rather quickened pace that gave the album a bit of an alternative metal meets grunge feel as the underpinning of the song structures.

Fortified with ample doses of feedback noise and excessive crushing riffs with the occasional squeals and other tricks of the trade, OUR PROBLEM is considered a major step up in terms of quality from the self-titled debut but it really depends on your perspective now, doesn’t it? Personally i actually prefer the less musically inclined and more noise-centered debut but that does not mean for a minute that i dislike OUR PROBLEM in any way. Both albums simply take on a different emphasis with this one being more in line with the tastes of the public. Unfortunately IRON MONKEY would encounter personal and band tensions which led to its implosion shortly after this album even though a new lineup was attempted but with the untimely passing of Johnny Morrow in 2002 it seemed the band’s chances of a comeback were nil. However to everyone’s surprise the band resurrected in 2017 and has released two new albums as the new IRON MONKEY thus making the new incarnation currently as productive as the first.

On a personal note, IRON MONKEY was my gateway drug into the greater world of sludge metal and totally by chance. I simply loved the grim artwork and took a chance and fell for its raw grime upon first listen. If you wish to purchase IRON MONKEY’s debut as well as OUIR PROBLEM,” the most highly recommended way is on the combo pack of the 2009 compilation “Our Problem / Iron Monkey” which features both albums in their entirely as well as several bonus tracks for each albums and well worth it because the bonus tracks are every bit as dynamic as the albums themselves. As far as i’m concerned, IRON MONKEY’s debut is the pinnacle of the most extreme expressions of 90s sludge metal and remains one of my faves in the since diversified subgenre that splintered off the hardcore punk and doom metal hybridization wagon way back in the 1980s. The bonus tracks are quite different from the album proper with the feedback and fuzz laden “Omozu (Wisdom of Choking)” sounding much more like the early drone metal of Washington’s Earth.