Iron Front – Hooked Review

If 2023 was the year of death metal, it was also the year that we witnessed a disturbance in the Death Metal Force. If you listened closely enough (or perused the staff Listurnalia lists), you would have witnessed a subtle yet epic battle between death metal that stimulated the brain and death metal that stimulated the gut; death metal that looked forward to the stars and death metal that looked backwards toward the classic days. Or to put it more simply, the groove vs. the tech. Yes, there’s overlap, but most death metal pulled one way or the other – lurching forward into complex modernity (Afterbirth, Wormhole, Horrendous, Tomb Mold, Outer Heaven) or taking a resolute step back to the simpler, olde days (Rotpit, Serpent Corpse, Autopsy). To see the split, very few writers included bands from both groups in their top 10. Of the death metal lads: Ferox, Saunders and the Sponge all hewed modern, the ape and Holdeneye went olde. It’s hard to say which group will dominate in 2024, but one thing’s for sure: if all that new-fangled nonsense was not for you, Iron Front have arrived with a no-frills call-back to brutal death metal and slam of olde. Should the olde guard take notice?

Iron Front are a young band fresh outta the savage wasteland of California. Their sound is a straightforward mix of hardcore, slam and brutal death, with an emphasis on the groove, not on noodly technicality. Their aim, from the outset, is to crush, not dazzle. Their debut, 2022’s Left Out to Rot, was as unpretentious as it was fun: a brutal little appetizer that promised more. That “more” is Hooked, and straightaway the cover will tell you everything you need to know. Hooked is purported to be what Iron Front do best: 22 minutes of brutal take downs, weird voice overs, and crushing riffs. But in its adherence to what has come before, the album fails to develop itself, and feels stuck in a bygone era.

Hooked is at its best on tracks like opener, “Dissolved in Resin,” where the chug is hefty, the drums have a satisfying “pong,” and the riff thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. But “Dissolved in Resin” highlights a problem that crops up repeatedly over the course of the album: it doesn’t know where to go. After the chunkiness, the band slows things down, waiting to deliver the coup de grace… which never comes. We just meander back to where we started. As a result, it feels longer than its 3-minute run time. This happens with most of the songs on the album: fun riff, caveman performances, but no satisfying conclusion and much circling. It seems weird to say it, but this 22 minute collection is bloated.

The album also feels weirdly dated. There are references to Family Guy, Mortal Kombat, FNAF, and some farts (?), which are more cringey than anything else. Slam is not a cerebral exercise, and I’m not here to intellectualize it, but if you’re gonna sample and meme, surely there’s more inspiring material out there? The production also sounds like something out of the early 2000s, with nowhere near enough heft to carry the songs, and the dynamic range and subtlety of your grandpappy singing in the shower. It carries neither the grime of, say, Rotpit, nor the clarity of Tomb Mold. It may be unfair to compare these kids to those bands, but I’m just not sure what they’re trying to do with the production here. Maybe they weren’t sure, either, and that’s the problem.

Overall, Hooked is an occasionally fun, if generally uninspired, collection of brutal slam and death metal. Iron Front have the chops for riffs and brutality, but they have yet to develop the ability to flesh those out into compelling tracks. When you combine that with its dated, blunted tone and weak production, you can’t help but feel let down. This first foray into the past is sadly a disappointment.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 3 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Creator-Destructor Records
Website: ironfront.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: January 12th, 2024