IRON CLAW: "A Different Game"

Rating: 6/10

Label: Ripple Music 2011

Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

Finally - the answer to the ancient tartan riddle: what's that noise at the bottom of the abyss of obscurity??? Blimey, from 1969 to 1974 Scottish heavy rock band Iron Claw plowed across the UK, blasting-out relentlessly doom-laden blues rock. Then nothing, and more of the same, until the bulk of their original recorded output decided to crawl up from the abyss in 2009... to the shock of stunned and confused highlanders as they could merely watch in horror as the self-titled debut was released by Rockadrome records.

2011 - the three original founding members of the band: Jimmy Ronnie (guitar), Alex Wilson (bass), Ian McDougall, and 'new' but hardly young, vocalist Gordon Brown (the PM?), are now returning to the scene with their first ever proper release. 40 years had passed since they'd last played together, but time meant nothing and according to the press-release, 'it was like putting on an old pair of shoes'. Did they have 'Nike' back in those days? hell, did they even have shoes for that matter?

Anyhow, "A Different Game", 13 tracks where some of the songs have their beginnings in songs written as far back as 1969. Some had been part of the band's live set in the very early 70s and some where bits of other projects. The album shows that tartans are getting tougher in their old age as the songs are stomping rock, but may lack a certain amount of proper sing-a-long moments. They're basically caught somewhere inbetween the compositions of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Iron Butterfly (with merely a hint of Nazareth) and it's at least a nice change from all the Sabbath and Purple sounding acts. Final verdict: Nice but no cigar.

www.myspace.com/ironclaw/