### Ironwood: Fire, water, ash

#### 30/03/09 || Euthanatos

Ironwood, heh. Giggles. Hehe. That’s pretty funny. But in all seriousness, Ironwood is an Australian folk metal band. A what now? Australian? Yes, the land down under does have all sorts of surprises.

Interestingly, the first track, “Önd ascending” is a soothing acoustic track, with some somber clean vocals mourning er… something. Who the fuck understands what Australians say anyway? It’s from the second track on that we get the metal part of the album, but only now and again. Truthfully, most of the time what you get is an acoustic album, with long, slow passages.

Ironwood has the epic and northern folk appeal to it, alternating between acoustic, slow parts and galloping metal strides eventually. The clean vocals are pretty good, deep and powerful, and there are at times some growling vocals, very sparse and rare, as are the faster, more extreme parts. I prefer the yelling, battle-chant type of vocals we get in songs like “The oncoming storm”.

I tried like a motherfucker to find bands to compare this too, but the fact is, love it or hate it, Ironwood sounds pretty unique to me. Usually what you get is a folk metal band that focuses on some sort of extreme metal mostly and entwines it with the occasional acoustic part. Ironwood does the opposite; they basically play unplugged and focus on ambient stuff, but every now and again they get a spark up their asses and play some metal.

Naturally, this isn’t something you’re going to put on to bang your head to. No, this is more of an Ulver vibe, if you catch my drift. Listening to this is to sit back and appreciate the different moods of the album and think about stuff like the meaning of life or what it’s like inside the belly of a whale. Those random philosophical moments that make us different from apes. Or dogs. Or whales, for that matter.

The metal side of Ironwood is a bit lacking, partly, I think, because of the production of the album. On the acoustic parts, you don’t really need much, so it goes unnoticed, but when something a bit heavier comes in, it all sounds a bit muddy, so it’s hard to appreciate the musicianship, but there are some good ideas to be heard.

You know what, this was a nice surprise. I think I’ll be playing this every now and again. Good for you, Aussies. Now all you need is to insert some didgeridoo in this, and I’ll definitely become a fan.

The cover: It’s pretty incomprehensible.

6 Fosters out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Independent
- Website: www.ironwoodsound.com.au
- Band
- Matt Raymond: vocals, guitars
- Phil Brown: guitars, vocals
- Henry Lauer: bass, vocals
- Dan Nahum: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Önd ascending
- 02. The oncoming storm
- 03. The raven song
- 04. Jarnvidr gallows
- 05. The serpent seeks its tail
- 06. Tide of memory
- 07. Love in death
- 08. River of fire
- 09. Eihwaz descending