Release Date: November 17th 2023. Record Label: Self Released. Formats: DD
Iron Nights - Tracklisting
1.Side By Side 02:41
2.From One To Another 04:28
3.I'm Losing My Mind 04:36
4.No Doubt About It 02:53
5.Cold Blue Sun 03:29
6.It's Been A While 04:01
7.Light Of Yesterday 04:15
8.Weigh Me Down 04:17
Members
Thomas V Jäger
Guest Musicians
Peter Scherman / drums on Side By Side
Anders ”Pompe” Jacobson / drums on From One To Another & The Light Of Yesterday
Isa Jaeger Berglund / Vocals on It’s Been A While
Nicklas Hellqvist / Bass on The Light Of Yesterday
Review
Thomas V Jäger from Doom Metal Titans MONOLORD returns with his new album Iron Nights and it’s his second solo album release of the year following April 2023’s Foliage. This is another collection of spellbinding tunes where Thomas delves into areas of Psych Rock, Blues Rock and Classic Rock which has moments of melancholic moments of Doom Rock and Stoner Rock. This is quite a different journey compared to Foliage with Thomas offering a more heartfelt sound which draws heavily upon the 1970’s Prog Rock scene with its flashes of intricate Psych Folk sounds.
Opening track Side By Side is a varied style of different musical themes with the song exploring Semi-Acoustic grooves that merge into areas of Folk, Blues, Psych and slightly more aggressive Stoner jams which setup the main creative nucleus of the whole album. Despite the short running time of the track Thomas covers a lot of ground on this track which is quite progressive in its own way. The song has the mellow trademark vocal tones from Thomas which adds a friendly atmosphere and easy-going attitude that makes the album more easier to fully get on board with.
The second song From One To Another is a gloomy and emotionally charged track that drifts form semi-acoustic rock to mind-expanding 1970’s trippy Prog Rock which soon brings a more emotional performance from Thomas with the Folk-ish trappings of the song. The song is quite melodic which becomes quite heavier when the full-on electric guitars appear that thrust the song into the 1980’s arena of Classic Hard Rock before the music mellows out with soft Ambient tones.
Third song I'm Losing My Mind is mostly driven by Post-Doom themes with echoes of Psych Stoner Rock with moments of MONOLORD inspired gloominess within the solitary acoustic guitars. The track impresses mostly with the minimal vocal performance from Thomas that reminds me of certain classic tracks of THE WHO in places. One of the standout tracks on the album and perhaps one of my favourite individual tracks that Thomas has created to date.
Fourth song No Doubt About It is an upbeat Blues Rock/Classic Rock number that has a more AOR or Soft Country Rock approach which I didn’t expect but it’s superbly played and a direction I wouldn’t expect to hear from Thomas. The vocals are calm, passionate and quite loud when they need to be with superbly written lyrics that have a loving and easy-going drive that will leave you with a nice warm glow inside you.
The second half of the album sees Thomas venture further into the different musical genres he’s created for this album with moments of Bluegrass starting to appear within the weirdly addictive fifth track Cold Blue Sun. Though, there’s still a wide range of fantastic sounding Classic Hard Rock sounds that blends the Acoustic and Electric styles of music to more magical sounds and extended grooves on other cool tracks such as It’s Been A While, Light Of Yesterday and Weigh Me Down.
Thomas had delved into his love and appreciation for the 1970’s Music scene where he brings so many different musical styles for an album that’s deeply warm-hearted and superbly engaging throughout. Iron Nights is another superb solo release from Thomas V Jäger which is also perhaps his most experimental and personal solo effort yet.
Words by Steve Howe
Links
BandCamp | Instagram
