I’ve often said that as I wander the vast halls of the Pierce
\nArchives (where we’re only seven-and-one-half games behind Houston
\nfor the division lead), I often find titles that I honestly don’t
\nremember buying. I also find titles that I bought and have never
\ngotten around to listening to – some of them approaching four years
\nold. (This is kind of why I started “The Daily Vault” in the first
\nplace – to force me off my keister and to listen to these. So far,
\nit hasn’t worked; I wouldn’t be surprised if I added over 500
\ntitles to the Archives yearly.)<\/p>\n
A third category in my searches is the “why did I even bother to
\nbuy this?” description. This fits today’s review victim,
\nHeavy<\/i>, the 1968 debut release from Iron Butterfly.<\/p>\n
Actually, I do know why I bought it. I had owned
\nIn-A-Gadda-Da-Vida<\/i> for some time, and got some type of
\nkitsch-y joy out of it. So, why not pick up other titles from the
\nband and enjoy that same retro excitement?<\/p>\n
Problem is, there’s not a lot of that same feeling on the debut
\nrelease. In a sense, it’s a whole different band than
\nIn-A-Gadda-Da-Vida<\/i>. Keyboardist Doug Ingle and drummer Ron
\nBushy are two members that made, shall we say, the first cut; but
\nthe Iron Butterfly that recorded
\nHeavy<\/i> included bassist Jerry Penrod, vocalist Darryl DeLoach
\nand guitarist Danny Weis. And while there are some touches of
\npsychedelia on this one,
\nHeavy<\/i> is more a pop album than a “stoner” work.<\/p>\n
If only Iron Butterfly were a good pop band. The first side of
\nthis one is absolutely atrocious. Cuts like “Unconscious Power,”
\n“You Can’t Win” and a cover of Allen Toussaint’s “Get Out Of My
\nLife, Woman” are barely listenable. The playing is blah, the
\nsongwriting is even more blah, and had Iron Butterfly’s career been
\nbased on these five songs, they’d all have been slinging hash at
\nthe local Big Boy in no time flat.<\/p>\n
The second side of
\nHeavy<\/i> holds a little promise. Cuts like “So-Lo” and “Fields
\nOf Sun” have some promise, but it is still underdeveloped. The
\nalbum’s instrumental closer, “Iron Butterfly Theme,” provides the
\nbrightest ray of hope for this band, and serves as a small tease
\nfor what was to come.<\/p>\n
The funny thing is, if you listen to
\nHeavy<\/i> and this is your first exposure to Iron Butterfly,
\nyou’d never guess that this was the same band (more or less) that
\nwould later that year release an album that would, for some time,
\nbe the best selling album in Atlantic Records’s history. Yes,
\nHeavy<\/i> charted well when it came out, but after 30 years, it
\nreally is time someone called a spade a spade.<\/p>\n
\nHeavy<\/i> is a rather low-key, uninspired introduction to a band
\nthat could do more than the disc proves. Fortunately for them,
\ntheir fifteen minutes of fame clock was about to start ticking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5704],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-39284","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-iron-butterfly","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39284"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}