Iron Crown – “Before The Void” – [Dark Side of Zen]

atavist   10/22/2019   12-inch, A Library

Beware ye seekers of wildly unfamiliar sonic terrain. Bay Area-based Iron Crown adheres to the ancient bong-riffing rites. (Ancient, in this case, dates back to period between 1970 and the mid-90s.) They have studied their predecessors and submit their offerings to the sacrificial altar, already piled to the rafters with stoner dreams from days of yore. Following on their debut release from a couple years prior (also in the KFJC library), “Before the Void” was well-recorded at Oakland’s Earhammer. The riffing is well-assembled. The regular-dude vocals prevalent on most of the tracks are a little out of place, but on the other hand it may differentiate Iron Crown’s sound from similar artists. Detractors will point to the lack of originality, but sometimes a smoke-shrouded slab of doom doesn’t need much alteration. Dune Rider is a nice instrumental track that moves along at a good clip, but the album is fairly consistent throughout, with no tracks lasting much more than five minutes, and no FCCs.