Two steps forward and all past trips held steady in mind Murcia, Spain-based heavy metal quartet Iron Curtain deliver their fifth and most tuneful record to date with a newly perfected personae in mind. ‘Savage Dawn‘ is a new beginning of sorts and not only in terms of tweaking the bands long-running modus in a more energetic direction. By cutting right to the meat of their own high-anthemic songcraft in feature of an increasingly crisp set of production values deployed since. Thanks to these circumstances we see more sides to the band than previously known and cannot help becoming even more ingratiated within a relatively short period of time.

Iron Curtain formed circa 2007 by way of vocalist/guitarist Mike Leprosy, the first band (that I know of) from this fellow active in the southeastern Spanish metal scene via zines and other crews since the late 90’s. The bass guitar position has been filled since 2010 but otherwise the line-up of the band has shifted with most every release from the band since their first LP (‘Road to Hell‘, 2012) wherein the artist showed some clear and enduring love for Tank, Exciter, and the fringes of speed metal then and spanning their next two full-lengths. All three of those first records are essential if you’re a fan of street-level side of NWOBHM and the bands who swung their balls into speed metal in the mid-80’s. When I’d reviewed their fourth LP (‘Danger Zone‘, 2019) I’d appreciated the run-up through their discography but found that record had lost the consistent identity that’d made the first three a good time, production values were slightly off and the leads weren’t always worthy. When their latest EP (‘Metal Gladiator‘, 2023) arrived it’d felt like an authentic reversion back to the early 80’s kick and crunch British metals sound per the three new songs, which were recorded in 2021, being rough and catchy stuff up there with their best material to date after adding a new second guitarist and drummer to the mix. This’d essentially been the crew responsible for ‘Savage Dawn‘.

While I’ve not gotten the full circa ’82 induction suggested by the previous EP, which been partially built from older material, most of what Iron Curtain manage here on album number five makes good on the path forward they’d been aiming for beyond 2019 or so. The basic heavy/speed metal riffcraft here is not tuneless but delivered with the strictures of the ‘old school’ always in mind, energetic and in service to both anthemic and heavy rock sized three and a half minute vintage metal pieces pulled at a reasonable clip. Expect the more anthemic side of late 80’s into early 90’s Running Wild (“Jericho Trumpet (Stuka)”) to step up alongside the usual Motörhead-isms and buzzing pace (“Gypsy Rocker“) one’d found in more abundance ’til about 1985 and, sure, on every prior LP from this band. The most ear-grabbing songs on ‘Savage Dawn‘, such as the ripping opener “Devil’s Eyes” and standout piece from the ‘Metal Gladiator‘ EP “Rattlesnake”, do a bit of both. This is partially what the band’ve been known for all these years and serves an improvement in terms of expanding not only their sound and style but the tuneful nature of it. A bit part of this comes from the onboarding of guitarist Juanma Fernández (since ~2021) whose playing and style seems to fit this roughneck-but-serious vision of 80’s heavy/speed metal the band are going for.

The most interesting pieces on the album aren’t necessarily the catchiest here. At ~31 minutes with the intro and outro included the core eight songs on this album all generally have to hit without a hitch for the whole sitting to hold up. I’d found the more dramatic and lengthier the pieces more effective in this context, such as the aforementioned closer “Jericho Trumpet (Stuka)” with its heavier thrashing push into the first set of verses, the higher relative pace applied and whoa-whoa chorales go a long way toward inserting a quick and efficient personality into this fast flinging-past record; My favorite pieces on ‘Savage Dawn‘ were eventually revealed as basically everything Side B has to offer per the quasi-anthemic rush of “Tyger Speed” and especially the hopefully soon-to-be live staple “Evil is Everywhere“.

The full listen somehow still thrives with all of its fat trimmed, sporting no notable excess or interruptive pieces to bog it down. This ensures that once the full listen becomes innately familiar and memorable it should generally stick for most all of the songs presented but only as long as its half hour scrape through remains invigorating for its jogging speed and performative attitude; It bears repeating that traditional heavy metal skewed towards the grittier spectrum of the NWOBHM and the speed metal resultant is exactly my gig and as such I’d felt that I understood Iron Curtain‘s goals well enough from the start. There’ll be no denying what a fine job they’d done cutting back to only the most essential pieces in the process of making ‘Savage Dawn‘ and this kinda ties my hands from nitpicking at their arrangements and generally high production values in too fine detail since a reasonably high standard of tradition is upheld in every case. A moderately high recommendation.

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