It’s easy to judge someone’s skill, technical ability and “deservedness” to be on a label putting out music in their teens. And quite honestly the judgement is often on point. Shit, think of the first garage band you were in. Could 30 or even 40-year-old you play those “songs” with a smile on your face not born completely of nostalgia or should you just tank them, never to be spoken of or heard again. None of us are the same people we were in our teens, and if we are, we have some growing to fuckin’ do.

Oakland, California’s IRON FRONT may be made up mostly of teenagers, but there’s an energy, an immediacy found on Hooked, the band’s second, that can’t be denied. ‘Dissolved In Resin’ begins steeped in syrup-laden groove, channel shifting guitars and a hardcore/death metal blend that many more seasoned bands have been struggling to get right for years and failing. The drums of Max Mahmood are perfectly suited to this style, able to add fills and flourishes when called for, but also imbued with an off-kilter, primal pound. There’s a bit too much of a SLIPKNOT element to the last :30 or so for my taste, but all in all, a good start, and the punishingly brutal slam of ‘Slug Rounds’ makes up for the stumble.

I’m not sure where the opening sample came from for ‘Burned By A Crack Pipe’, but it sets the song up perfectly, this careening, squealing, almost NASUM-like grind sensibility over deceptively funky bass lines. If you name a song ‘Pig Splitter’ and it flops, just give it up, trade in your instruments and swing by Kroger for snacks then Game Stop on your way home to the basement you should never leave again. Thankfully, this one is an untamed, hectic mishmash of d-beat rhythms, early EXHUMED, and the always-bubbling-under-the-surface hardcore that will likely – if it isn’t already – become the quintet’s calling card. Also, related, so many death metal vocalists just can’t and shouldn’t attempt to inject any sort of hardcore style into their delivery, because it just doesn’t work. Vocalist Topey Plourde, over the whole album, is an exception.

I wasn’t sure what I was in for with Hooked, but I can tell you I’ll be back, and watching IRON FRONT. If they make the right moves, these dudes could set some shit on fire for a long while.
Review By: Lord Randall

IRON FRONT
Hooked
Creator-Destructor Records