Review by Chad on January 21, 2020.

I was pretty upset with Paul DiAnno's sophomore solo album. As great as his track record is, his solo content certainly doesn't share the same reputation. Di'Anno was a sign of things to come, a decent album with its own likable charm to it but keep slipping down such a rabbit hole and one ends up with albums like The World's First Iron Man and As Hard as Iron. Both published in '97, both containing the word "Iron" in the title, as if to plead with the masses "Hey guys, remember me? Paul Di'anno? You know, the guy in Iron Maiden before Bruce Dickinson? I still make music. PLEASE REMEMBER ME". I honestly don't get it, I didn't know the guy had a knack for glam rock and 80's AOR. I'd like to say I don't have anything against the choice of genre, but let's face it, 9 times out of 10 when you hear the labels "glam rock" or "AOR" associated with a genre, you know it's going to suck. It's going to be riddled with nearly every cliché you can think of from the whiny vocals on "Searching for You" to the gang shouts on the admittedly decent "Danger Lines", and in Paul Di'Anno's case, a spoonful of covers by awful pop artists. James Brown? Fastway? Wild Cherry? Yeah, the last album sucked big dick, but this time he's actually managed to make an entire album of original tunes, without the credibility of other peoples tried and approved material to artificially enhance the flavor of As Hard as Iron.

And that's actually worth rejoicing. The only thing worse than a flat original album is one that's being eaten alive by cover songs that only dampen what could've been a fully unique experience. I don't care if it's "Stairway to Heaven", I want to hear what you can create, not what you can replicate. One would think that would give this album a higher score than its predecessor, but the original material here is so flabbergastingly WORSE than anything from the last album that I almost miss those cheesy cover songs. No wonder Di'anno was phoning it the fuck in, these albums found him working with a smorgasbord of musicians you've never heard of, and you've never heard of them for good reason. They lack depth, character, style and originality. The ultimate studio musicians. I can't fathom any reason for it other than Manifest Records throwing as many musicians for Di'Anno to sing over as possible. "Wow! What a diverse musician Paul Di'anno is!" I hear the apologetics of these two albums say. I find to even think such a thing is to have a shallow perception of music, great the guy can make pop music that sounds like every other forgotten 80's pop band.

There's a few songs that just barely manage to get by. I dig the blues rock of opening track "Rock the Boat" to some extent, even if it is pretty crusty and stale white people butt rock. Album closer "Only in my Dreams" is serviceable, easily the best song on the album. Such a strong pop song in fact, that I'm not entirely convinced it's not a cover. Can you see what I mean by covers hurting an artist's credibility? It's to the point that I doubt that a studio musician project such as this can manage to come up with anything good on their own. I'll give it the benefit of a doubt, because I'd like to give As Hard as Iron it's fair dues. That being said, it took me a year to find out that "Show Some Emotion" from the previous album was a Fastway cover, so I'm still skeptical, especially when one considers how hard it is to find any information on this album. "Danger Lines" is the only distinctively heavy metal song on the album, 80's glam metal to be sure, but metal nonetheless. This is Di'Anno's territory, and actually sounds like an evolution of what could've come from his solo project's first lineup. It calls back to the Scorpions style riffage and pop rock of "Bright Lights".

The rest is so awful that its vomit inducing. Especially the acoustic guitar and piano ballad "Searching for You" that uses a mere wood block as its means for percussion. Worst of all, Di'Anno sings out of key in his worst vocal performance EVER. Fucking EVEERRRRRR. I actually listened to this all the way through and it was so awful that it made my skin crawl and made me dry heave. This isn't even the least of it though. If you ever want to challenge yourself, try listening to the whole album. "Only You that this Love Needs" sounds like it would start off better by a country mile, but when Di'Anno starts singing the whole thing reeks of booze, pills and the stench of washed-up, midlife crisis material. Di'Anno is no longer taking authority over his own music but giving the authority to audiences that don't even know his name, the same mistake Bruce Dickinson made with his first couple of albums. I mean really Paul, what do you expect? The ex-lead singer of Iron Maiden and Battlezone to tour with once-popular 80's pop rock acts? I'm repulsed and irritated, sure, but I'm mostly just repulsed. For a guy that self-identifies as a punk rocker, this guy sure does get bent over the record label's corporate lap a few more times than I'd care to admit.

Di'Anno's two '97 releases are home to his absolute worst material outside of Gogmagog. If you're curious about what Di'Anno could do in a pop rock setting, just go for his self-titled 1984 debut Di'Anno. These couple of albums are best left forgotten by both the fans and Di'Anno himself as I don't think even Di'Anno wanted these releases to see the light of day. He sounds just as bored and tired here as he did on the previous album. As Hard as Iron is as flaccid as they come, look even the title of the album is in fuckin' denial.

Rating: 2 out of 10