Iron Butterfly's first album was called Heavy which is very descriptive, that's just about the only thing to be said about it, it was a very obvious effort to be just that.

I had hoped that their second would be different. Two members of the group present on Heavy were replaced and rumors had it their sound was totally changed from the first into something called "mystery-rock" (more butterfly than...

They may boast two of the originals (Erik Braunn and Ron Bushy) but the sound of the 1975 Iron Butterfly owes more to the Stooges of Fun House, the Velvet Underground of The Velvet Underground and 1966 in general than it does to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. In fact, the album seems so truly inspired by 1966 punk rock that it becomes naive by today's standards, and it's ironic to think that a band...

Doug Ingle's ponderous organ that blew not a few minds on the group's first LP is still around, but it's time to ask whether Iron Butterfly has outlived its usefulness. The old band had a unified let's-fuck-up-some-heads approach, and even if they rarely made it past the earlobe, they were the Butterfly, distinctly bad and good. Now it's a little of this and that and trying to find out who their...