This year marks 15 years since Iron On’s debut album, Oh The Romance, was released. I never imagined that I’d see this album released on vinyl, especially not in 2020. But here we are.

In many ways, 2005 feels like a lifetime ago. And yet, I still have so many memories from that defining period of my life. I was twenty-five years old, and everything felt big and important. I had big dreams and big plans. I also had big anxiety and big heartache. But when a new song started to click in the rehearsal room, or when I stepped on stage with Iron On, I could escape all that. And I suddenly felt alive. It was a period defined by high highs and low lows. The making of Oh The Romance was no exception.

We wanted Oh The Romance to be a progression—sonically and musically—from our first two EPs. We wanted huge guitars and plenty of hooks. Our in-joke at the time was that we wanted an album with ‘more hooks than a pirate convention’. Our first two EPs—The Understudy and Everybody Calm Down—were sprawling, unhinged and experimental. We still wanted these things—they were inherently ‘Iron On’’—but we also wanted Oh The Romance to be an album that people could dance to. In essence, an album that sounded like the love child of The Woods by Sleater Kinney and Weezer’s Blue Album. So we asked ARIA-award winning producer, Magoo, if he would steer the ship and, to our amazement, he said yes.  

For this special fifteenth anniversary vinyl edition of Oh The Romance, we have included two bonus tracks: ‘Burn Collection’ and ‘Again, Again, Again’. These songs were demoed with Magoo in 2007, but never mastered or released in any official capacity—until now.  

For long-time fans of Iron On, I hope you enjoy this audio journey back to 2005. And for those of you who might be listening to Iron On for the very first time, welcome to the romance. 

—Ross