The Ironweed Project - These Chains Ain’t Gonna Hold Me
Artist – The Ironweed Project
Album – These Chains Ain’t Gonna Hold Me
Label – The Birdman Records
Rating – 4/5
The brainchild of multifaceted artist Aniff Akinola, The Ironweed Project returns after a five year hiatus. While the writer behind Ian Brown’s “Set my baby free” and founding member of cult hip-hop group Chapter and the Verse could be forgiven for being a little rusty, the absolute opposite is true.
These Chain’s Ain’t Gonna Hold Me is an absolutely crazy, mind meltingly weird triumph.
This contrast defines the album, as the slow, harmonious vocals of Aniff blending beautifully with the blue-grass and 70’s funk guitars that pervade throughout the album.
Not everything is successful though. Where the other bonkers compositions are mainly golden, Making All Kinds of Music’s techno/dubstep nightmare base is just a step too far and simply mismatches the vocal and is easily the album’s low point.
It doesn’t last for long though, with the rest of These Chains just getting better and better as the record goes on.
The jazz band sections that live at the heart of In A Box, the fantastically funny and self-deprecating lyrics of A Little Love, the heartfelt honesty of Addicted To Love, the biting satire and political commentary of Fat City and the genius use of harmonicas and kazoos in Goodbye Blues are but a number of highlights.
With every track feeling unique, there are only two continuous presences throughout the album; Aniff’s fantastic, drawling world-weary vocal and the complete and the utter unpredictability of absolutely everything else.
Utterly compelling, These Chains may just be an album too bizarre to recommend to all comers, but those with even a passing fondness for blue-grass, country, funk and the spoken word will have an gratifyingly hair brained time and find an absolutely refreshing take on the hip-hop genre.
These Chains Ain’t Gonna Hold Me is available now
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith