Toronto-based powerhouse Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs debut a new track today, titled “Gates of Heaven” from their upcoming, 3rd studio LP Real One. Produced by Kevin Ratterman, who is known for his work with White Reaper, Strands of Oak and My Morning Jacket, Real One is a work of loving, earnest maximalism. Its proportions are ambitious and grand: blown-out gang vocals, sweeping piano, shimmering saxophone, romantic string arrangements, and thunderous guitars reign across 11 tracks.
“This song is about letting go,” Coffey confesses of the seven-minute ballad which stirs to life with smoky, rhinestone-studded romantics before ascending into a wide-open desert highway climax. “I’m trying to pose less and be more genuine as I get older. I used to obsess over this band and constantly loop around how I felt I never received enough recognition for the little amount that I contributed. I even used to spin out and assume out of thin-air that my peers or other artists in my circle thought I was a joke. It’s more likely that my friends and peers support me or I just don’t cross their mind at all. But it’s a toxic view to have and I feel super fortunate to not dwell on it anymore. All it took was getting off my ass and going for it to give myself some peace of mind.” Late last year, the band recorded a raucous Sunrise Records Live Session at ARC Recording Studio, with engineer Julius Butty at the helm, who notably produced 3 of Alexisonfire’s Platinum-selling records: Old Crows / Young Cardinals (2009), Crisis (2006), and Watch Out! (2004).
.Along with his band mates Dave Tyson (keys), Liam Doyle (lead guitar), Joel “French” Desbois (rhythm guitar), Richard Stanley (bass) and Connor Glen (drums), Coffey has created an album that could be staged on Broadway. Across the album Coffey explores different voices and tones, putting them on like a stage actor might costumes. Real One glides from arena-rock rippers (“Back With The Gang”) to fringed country gallops (“Magic”) to slow-burning Brill Building balladry (“Gates Of Heaven”) to beloved Thin Lizzy-adjacent workouts (“She Knows”).
To complete these anthemics, the band called on their community for help: vocalist Siânteuse contributed soaring operatic vocals to four tracks, while Destroyer’s Joseph Shabason’s sax solos alternate between brooding patiently on “Gates Of Heaven” and screaming boldly on “15 Minutes,” and Paul Erlichman of Ducks Unlimited and Elrichman arranged the string quartet who underpin the album’s most dramatic moments. The band’s bombastic first single “Back With the Gang” continues to climb the Active Radio charts, sitting at #23. “It’s a really triumphant, victorious record,” says Coffey. “I always thought I wasn’t where I should be, but now I feel like I am.”
It’s been three years since Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs released their triumphant self-titled LP on Dine Alone. An album that elevated their rough and ready garage stylings into something with true arena rock ambitions, the album was a milestone for the band that saw them adding surprise commercial radio success in their native Canada to high praise from international media outlets like Pitchfork, VICE, Consequence of Sound, BrooklynVegan and Spin, while taking their joyous live show on the road on a bigger scale then they ever had before as they toured with acts like FIDLAR, The Dirty Nil, Frank Turner and Billie Joe Armstrong’s The Longshot.
