IAmFire – Eyes Wide Open – EP Review
Released on Halloween, this EP – comprising two lengthy compositions – acts as a precursor to the pledge campaign IAmFire intend running to fund a full length album. Chances are, if you keep abreast of current events in metal you’ll be aware of the controversy of certain bands using pledge campaigns to fuel not just the creation of new music, but apparently, their lifestyle in general! Whatever you may feel about such business plans, this trio of Danes – rounded out by former The Haunted frontman Peter Dolving – do make a pretty agreeable racket. Whether after listening to these two tracks, you feel obliged to put our hand in your pocket….well, we guess that’s your business!
First off, IAmFire are arrestingly devoid of heavy metal conventions. This is stoner rock with the emphasis on rock. While we have the Kyuss staples of drop-tuned, fuzz-driven guitars that twist and buck against the drone, it’s chiefly via Dolving’s vocals that we visit a whole host of alt rock landmarks circa the mid-90’s. On opener “Eyes Wide Open”, his delivery is high and there is a shamanic, almost eastern-influence to his warbled melodies and yelped proclamations. Actually, he reminds us a little of Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell.
The second track is another slice of rather sexy 90’s-tinged magic, this time coming strapped with riffs that could have been offcuts from the sessions for Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream. For us, it’s a rather provocative trip down memory lane, so much so that by the time the EP was over we found a half drunk bottle of cider on the table, a chunk of hash in our right hand and the ass of a chick in stripy leggings in the left (really must start locking the door at night).
IAmFire tick a lot of the same boxes as Queens of the Stone Age but, if anything, their European sound renders them more dangerous and unpredictable; a little less sterile perhaps. Let’s hope they do get the chance to make their full length album as, on the strength of Eyes Wide Open, it sounds like something we’d really like to hear! 7/10
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