Ironboss – Guns Don’t Kill People… Ironboss Does!! – Review

Ironboss

Guns Don’t Kill People… Ironboss Does!! (Underdogma)
by Brian Varney

Exceedingly well-intentioned Southern hard rock, kinda like the inverse of Black Label Society. Whereas BLS play metal with a little bit of Southern rock thrown in, Ironboss play Southern rock with a little bit of metal (mostly apparent in the early Metallica-flavored attack and production). And though BLS sit a lot closer to the middle of said spectrum than Ironboss, the comparison is worth making, if only for the sake of sentence structure.

This poorly-recorded live disc (whose idea was it for the kick drum to be the loudest thing in the mix?) documents the high energy and bad-ass quotient of the band’s live show, though a hot studio recording would be a welcome addition to my collection. This disc gives you a good idea of the band’s attitude and energy level (both high), but it’s hard to really get a handle on the band’s style when there’s so much sonic mud to wade through.

Still, there’s not much to complain about here. Any disc that opens with a cover of Foghat’s version of “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and closes with a ripping version of Saxon’s “Motorcycle Man” is A-OK with me. Between these bookends are seven originals, all of ’em pretty good to great. Imagine a single-mic recording of late ’70s boogie-rockers (Foghat or Blackfoot, for instance) and early Metallica fighting in a filthy bar bathroom and you’ve got a pretty good idea of the sound and ambience of this CD. Loud, sloppy, subtle as a rhino with a hard-on, and likely to vomit on your floor.
(PO Box 5070 Fredericksburg, VA 22403)