Iron Claw ~ Scotland

Iron Claw (1970-1974 / 2009)

Where to even start? So the deal with Iron Claw is they have four different historical Marks similar to Deep Purple in that way. The first Mark (1970) demonstrates Iron Claw emulating Black Sabbath's early style of crushing heavy blues rock, and this is the sound most associated with the band. The material - and sound - is very raw and distorted. It's good stuff, but not devastating. The first five tracks on the CD are from this era. The second Mark (1971) contains only one song and is very similar in sound and scope to Mark I. I found that the real revelation on this CD is Mark III (1971-72), which begins to add in more sophistication and introduces a broad palette of tones including woodwinds. The sound quality is excellent on these tracks, differentiating it greatly from the prior material. Fortunately this stage of the band has a strong presence on the disc - and no less than eight tracks are presented here. Mark IV (1973-74) sees Iron Claw going full throttle towards complex progressive rock territory. Unfortunately there's only two tracks from this period and the sound isn't ideal, but the music is quite brilliant and demonstrates a band that is really starting to fire on all cylinders. It's a pity they never were able to release a proper studio album. So all in all, an excellent archival collection. It's worth noting that the music is presented chronologically, so this isn't a title that works well in "random play" mode.

Ownership: 2009 Rockadrome (CD). Informative historical notes and photos. 

3/20/14 (acquired / review / new entry)