In the middle part of last decade, Iggy & The Stooges returned to the surface playing dozens of festivals and hundreds of mid-sized venues across the globe after a substantial hiatus. Though erratic and ageless frontman Iggy Pop had been consistently active as a solo artist since the band’s breakup in 1974, his reunion with original Stooges guitarist and drummer Ron and Scott Asheton reignited the unique flame that fueled the proto punk band in 1968.

In 2007, the group released its first studio album of all new material called The Weirdness. While diehard Stooges fans were content with the slew of new tunes, many others saw it as a dud.

Nevertheless, the band’s resurrection was immediately put to a halt in 2009 when guitarist Ron Asheton was found dead in his home after suffering a heart attack at the age of 60.

Five months after Asheton’s death, Pop confirmed that the band would continue on with James Williamson as the guitarist. Williamson had played guitar on the band’s 1973 album, Raw Power, and Asheton temporarily played bass.

Willaimson and Asheton both had a way of oozing out raunchy riffs, but the two had incredibly different styles; Asheton’s wah-wah and reverb-soaked licks represented a dark chapter of the psychedelic genre while Williamson’s hard-hitting and crunchy tone carried the ruckus from ’60s punk.

Fast-forward to 2013, and we hear the vintage Williamson attack on the new song, “Burn.” The thick guitars on the track likely mean the new album, Ready to Die will be filled with monstrous fuzz. “Burn” sees Pop using the deeper end of his vocals, singing “Burn, Burn. Am I concerned? Should I be so? Well, I don’t know.”

Take a listen here:  

Iggy & The Stooges have a handful of festival appearances coming up in the near future, but only two are in the U.S. They play South By Southwest (Austin) March 13th and the Ink-N-Iron Festival (Long Beach, CA) on June 8th. Ready to Die will be released April 30th on Fat Possum Records.

– Chris Coyle, KZOK Seattle