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Iron Hero, Safe as Houses

by Waites Laseter
04/20/2006

No offense meant to The Whigs or the magazine that picked them, but Rolling Stone chose the wrong Athens band to place in their "Top 10 Artists to Watch" list. Iron Hero is by far the best band regularly performing in Athens, and their self-released debut album, Safe as Houses proves it.

Iron Hero's sound on Safe as Houses simply cannot be defined. A musician once told me that a true great could play a single quiet note with the same force as the loudest note: Iron Hero has achieved this greatness. The songs on Safe as Houses are all very quiet, yet crash over you like a wave on a windy day. Ben Simpson's complex bass line drives the melody while Thomas Wilcox and Nick Hasty's drums delicately and dexterously keep time. The guitars of Lawson Grice, Jimmy Taylor and Sam Gunn dart in and out of each other with the sound of some twisted bastard love child of Robert Johnson and The Edge. Gunn's vocals aren't thrust to the front as in other bands, but instead both remain part of the composition and systematically pierce the consciousness with every syllable.

Safe as Houses can best be defined as subtle. It's clever, but not in a boastful way. It's hushed, yet still emotional and powerful. One can only marvel at the ease with which Iron Hero manages to craft each track, playing them honestly, almost apologetically. Perhaps this is why Rolling Stone passed over Iron Hero; this six-piece music machine are too humble to be rock stars. This humility only makes them greater, as Safe as Houses proves.