Shane’s Music Challenge: ICON – 1984 – Icon

Shane’s Music Challenge: ICON – 1984 – Icon
9/10

One of my favourite one-album-wonders (or so I thought for a long time), this record regularly turns up on ‘cult favourite’ lists amongst hard & heavy rock obsessives.

You could, with the benefit of hindsight, call icon one of the immediate forefathers of hair metal. Certainly the futuristic, torn up wardrobe vibe was emulated to the max by the Warrants and Dokkens and Motleys who followed over the next few years – all of which sold a gazillion more records than these guys, not necessarily fairly, though.

Icon is one of those records which, if you were there and following the progression of hard rock at the time, will still have stayed with you now, thirty years later. Iron Maiden and Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister were heavy and happening. Thrash was just starting to explode. Def Leppard’s Pyromania was just making it huge. Icon harnessed the metal power, lashed it to great songs played by great musicians, and produced an all killer, no filler record that should have done a lot more business.

They went on to make a couple more good albums (not this good, though) with a line-up that changed a couple of times, but this is the stone cold classic.

I was lucky enough to catch the reformed Icon at Rocklahoma 2009, where they played with 3 original members – guitarists Dan Wexler and John Aquilino, and drummer Pat Dixon. Bassist Dave Henzerling (aka David Michael-Phillips) took up with the band, having briefly played guitar with them in their formative years. Former Adler’s Appetite vocalist Sheldon Tarsha handled vocals at that gig and did a roaring job through a set which leaned heavily on this album. The band are reportedly still active, with original vocalist Stephen Clifford back on the mic.

Category: Shane's Rock Challenge