posted on 11.01.2024

IRON FRONT: Metal Injection Streams Hooked LP From Oakland-Based Brutal Death Metal Crew; Album Sees Release This Friday On Creator-Destructor Records

“IRON FRONT is here to throw you straight into the meat grinder…” – Metal Injection

Stream IRON FRONT’s Hooked HERE.

Metal Injection is hosting an exclusive stream of Hooked, the second album from Oakland, California-based brutal death metal outfit IRON FRONT, ahead of the record’s official release this Friday on Creator-Destructor Records.

Originally formed in 2016 as Dire Wolves, the band reformatted to IRON FRONT in 2019 and is currently embodied by drummer Max Mahmood, guitarist/vocalist Cruz Garcia, guitarist Jesse Dicruttalo, bassist Dmitri Castillo Russel, and vocalist Topey Plourde. Taking inspiration from old-school death metal and NYHC, the output of IRON FRONT is a hardcore-adjacent, slam-induced alloy of pure savagery, calling to mind 200 Stab Wounds, Snuffed On Sight, Skinless, Bodybox, Internal Bleeding, and Suffocation.

Prior to Hooked, IRON FRONT has released a handful of demos and singles, the Flayed Alive EP on Transylvanian Recordings, and their independently released Left Out To Rot debut full-length, in addition to having performed live all over the greater Bay Area and touring across the Western US.

Now, IRON FRONT arrives with their most decimating material to date with their second album, Hooked, the succinct but dense record savagely unloads seven earthmoving tracks stacked with infectious riff-hooks and earthmoving beatdowns. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Nicholas Morosini at Inpatient Studios in Oakland, Hooked is completed with cover art by Julian Felipe Mora Ibañez.

IRON FRONT collectively offers, “We’re very excited to release this album and show how we’ve developed as musicians and as a band. Most of us have been playing together and making music with each other since we were about twelve years old, and we feel ready to start moving up from, ‘a band to watch,’ to a, ‘band being watched.’ We’ve taken what we’ve learned from performing over the last several years and used that experience to create crushing songs that will decimate in both a live and studio setting. I think both hardcore kids and death metal bros will dig this record, and our good friends Gerold and Kane from Manos De Fierro and Harry from Bodybox did some sick features on some of the songs.”

Metal Injection writes, “IRON FRONT is here to throw you straight into the meat grinder with their new record Hooked. Equal parts hardcore throwdown bits and grinding death metal chunks, Hooked is practically made to be blasted.”

Hear IRON FRONT’s gutting Hooked in its entirety early at through Metal Injection now at THIS LOCATION.

Hooked will be released on LP and digital platforms this Friday, January 12th. Find preorders at the Creator-Destructor webshop HERE and Bandcamp HERE.

IRON FRONT will support Hooked with regional live actions and tour dates in 2024, having just completed a three-day run across California, and with a release show for the album going down in San Francisco this Saturday on January 13th. Watch for additional dates to post shortly.

IRON FRONT Live:

1/13/2024 The Bottom Of The Hill – San Francisco, CA *Hooked release show

“…a gut-eviscerating slam-fest of epic proportions.” – Decibel Magazine