On Monday night, people who had arrived early at the Satellite were probably taken by surprise by the intensity of this band named Irontom, and in particular by the theatrical stage presence of their frontman and vocalist Harry Hayes.
Not only their sound was bigger than the room, but Hayes was all arms-in-the-air, mimicking the music with all kinds of dramatic and over-the-top gestures, while singing along their strong rocking numbers with a powerful voice ranging from a melodramatic tone to operatic howls. Actually, the five of them had a strong personality, and the loud and interesting keyboard in the middle of their giant jams was bringing more than your usual rock-sound into an already energetic game and some strong dance grooves.
I thought that certain of their first songs were reaching an almost Muse-inspiration level, but I am not saying this in a bad way at all – that could be misunderstood because of all the well-deserved bashing Muse’s last song got – but there certainly was this idea of being not afraid to install the grandiose into a rock song. A bombastic level was attained each time when all their instruments were coming into play, carrying Hayes’ tenor-like bold vocals. But their inspiration was certainly diverse, there was a cabaret-like sensibility because of the way the singer was acting, and a few of their songs ended by gigantesque psychedelic classic-rock Led-Zeppelin-esque jams that the crowd seemed to really appreciate.
Irontom is a very recent band, which has only emerged at the beginning of this year, as they said during the show they were about to release a debut EP which was recorded with Alain Johannes (Eleven, Chris Cornell, Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, Arctic Monkeys, Mark Lanegan) and you can even listen to a preview of it here. My bet is that we will hear more of their stadium-filling sound, furious singing and aggressively ambitious music very soon.
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