Synth Single Review: “The Iron Tiger” by Ness Daniels
by Karl Magi
Ness Daniels’ “The Iron Tiger” shivers out a warning in pulsing signals, setting the stage for a tale of suffering and escape that will create a fighter of great strength, as a dramatic tonal sweep adds darkness. Brian Carbajal’s crashing militaristic drums join with a melodic line transmitted on haunting panpipes which cry out into the nocturnal shadows around it.
Erwin Amezcua and Nathan Sansom’s guitars bring added power and feeling into the song. As the percussion collides, slicing guitar climbs with dynamism and Annessa Hernandez's vocals soar with fiery strength in opposition to the suffering which she faces. Her voice exudes pain and defiance as the background glows with ferocious brightness and the rhythm drives while a guitar slashes like a razor.
Panpipes echo with a mysteriously levitating melody as the thumping beat accelerates with blazing speed. Alex Garcia’s saxophone attacks with wild, spectral ferocity as it tears into the night while the breathy panpipes cry out. The guitar carries its own melancholy and ghostly feeling.
Annessa Hernandez grips me with feelings of loss and resistance as she seeks an escape. Shattering power explodes through the guiding drums and flying guitars as Alex Garcia releases his intensely moving solo and the panpipes vibrate before the song ends on huge drums.
As the song’s subject calls the narrator’s name in the middle of the night, she says, “You’re calling your friends so I can meet you down below.” She wonders, “Does it ever end? Is this what I’m made for? Is this who I am?” The other person drives to her and meets her under the streetlight. She wonders if it will be the end tonight and says, “Almost there, closer to my end, don’t know where to go from here.”
Our storyteller is “dying in the arms of a stranger, dying to feel alive again,” as she adds that she’s dying tonight. She winds up in a demeaning situation between the song’s subject and another person. The other person is slowly killing her and she asks, “Is this all you’re good for? Is this who you are?”
As she succumbs to him, she says, “Can’t keep control of my body,” adding that “nothing pure is left in me, almost done.” The narrator is ready to leave and says she’s almost there, wanting the other person to finish what they’re doing to her.
