Iron Hero

w/ Twin Tigers, Oblio

Friday, February 15 @ Caledonia Lounge

originally published February 13, 2008

Big locally a few years back, Athens six-piece Iron Hero released a well-received and charismatic album Safe as Houses, and drew a number of fans keen on its spacious, dynamically layered approach to rock songs. Members moved out of town or moved on, or both. An experiment at reviving the band as a four-piece stalled, and the group played only one show with that lineup, in December '06. Much of Iron Hero's fanbase has aged beyond the open-ended lifestyle of the immediately post-college Athenian, and so it could prove interesting to see what happens in Iron Hero land; the band's hitting local stages again with new songs and a new lineup.

"I don't think it'll sound a lot like that four-piece show," says vocalist-guitarist Sam Gunn, who spent much of the time away from his band filling in on bass for The Whigs. "After that show, I was very dissatisfied with Iron Hero. We had a couple new songs, but we were essentially playing the same stuff over and over, and we hadn't really thought out the new stuff too well. I was kinda crushed from losing half the band, and things just weren't feeling right… Once my duties with The Whigs were complete, I started to get the Iron Hero itch."

And there are new songs Gunn and multi-instrumentalist Lawson Grice have been writing together; Gunn says, "The new songs are generally more fun, a little poppier, a little noisier, though we've still got a couple of darker ones. The people that have heard our new demos seem to think they're much different from the old stuff. I think we're all really excited about it."

Chris Hassiotis