CC Ryder

Iron Maiden
Maiden Voyage
1970

Last weekend I was with my family at my wife's parents' house. My father-in-law and I were talking about music a little, which is rare because honestly we don't relate at all on this kind of thing. But there we were. Somehow or another we get on the subject of Iron Butterfly, and he tells me that when he was in Vietnam, his nickname was Iron Butterfly because he was such a fan of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", which, of course, he identified by asking "what was that one song they did that was like 30 minutes long?" It was painted on the side of his plane or something, anyway. So I'd decided that I was going to post Iron Butterfly's "Metamorphosis" in honor of the guy, and so I could tell this little story here, but as I listened to the record again I was reminded that Iron Butterfly mostly sucked aside from the aforementioned opus. I should track down In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and give it a chance some time. I think my brother had it back in the day. So anyway, instead, you're getting Iron Maiden, who sound like what I want Iron Butterfly to sound like when I think about them. C'est la vie.

This is, of course, not the same Iron Maiden you're thinking of. These guys formed in the late 60s in Essex, England, and played bluesy hard-rock. The funny thing, though, is to listen to some of these tracks and imagine them done by the more famous Iron Maiden. The first track in particular features a plodding rhythm that would make Steve Harris proud. Also, "Liar" could've been reinterpreted to fit in nicely on one of the first two Maiden records. At any rate, this stuff could be seen as another version of the same downtrodden rock that Black Sabbath played, but it's got more of a loose, Pentagram feel rather than the thicker, fuzzier stuff that eventually evolved into doom and stoner metal. Think Jethro Tull, a less motorcycled-out Steppenwolf maybe. I dunno. It's pretty good, though. Better than Iron Butterfly at the very least.

Maiden Voyage