Album Review: Ingrown – “Idaho” (Metallic Hardcore)

Written by Ellis

Right, this album throws together a load of the meanest bits of hardcore, thrash, death metal and powerviolence and ends with a medley of Irish jigs played on banjo, mandolin, and acoustic guitar, so lock the fuck in. It’s the sophomore full-length from Boise, Idaho’s Ingrown and the follow-up to their 2021 debut LP Gun, which, as covered in the fourth volume of our legendary and long-forgotten Please Sir, I Want Some Core series, was an absolute monster. That record, plus the band’s no-brainer signing to beast music connoisseurs Closed Casket Activities and subsequent release of a good few singles, means that Idaho arrives to a decent amount of hype in hardcore circles, and it delivers on that pretty much exactly as one would hope and expect.

To be honest, Ingrown didn’t need to mess with much to produce another winner here, and they haven’t. Recorded like its predecessor with producer Andy Nelson (Jesus Piece, Harm’s Way, Weekend Nachos), Idaho essentially just adds a few more pounds of muscle to the band’s already imposing form—it’s tougher, heavier, and at 18 minutes all told a relatively decent chunk longer, while still nowhere near outstaying its welcome. As you’d expect, the tracks are short but still plenty dense and meaty, with the band expertly and relentlessly switching things up from one killer part to another to ensure that there is never too much reliance on any one mode of violence—whether that’s mosh or groove or sheer sickening pace.

Fourth track “Cold Steel”, which was actually released as a single back in 2023, remains one of the album’s finest examples of this. It comes flying in all breakneck riffing and blast beats, slows down through more of a two-step section, then into a thick and filthy groove, then speeds back up again before dropping to the inevitable gargantuan beatdown to close—all this barely clearing the 90-second mark while still feeling impressively coherent and natural enough for the listener to follow. A little further on the band demonstrate how they extend this sort of approach to the album as a whole, with the grueling “Your Fault”—one of just two tracks on here that manages to exceed two minutes—striking up the slowest and stinkiest groove on the entire record in a way that really pulls the listener back in right at the halfway mark

To be clear though, all of Idaho is pretty much just as good really. It may face the relatively common challenge of struggling to be hugely memorable from one individual track to another, but while it’s on it’s nothing but a great, in-your-face kinda time where you can practically taste the metal on your tongue and feel the riffs and grooves rattling around inside your skull. All this, it bears emphasising, is the work of just three band members, with vocalist/guitarist Ross Hansen sounding suitably gruff and booming and beastly while the rhythm section of bassist Gavin McWilliams and drummer Charlie Ritch lock things down as they navigate the album’s constantly teetering tempo.

There’s also—believe it or not—a fair bit of heart at the, uhh, heart of this record. Ninth track “Asylum” is actually a cover of a song originally written by Hansen’s father Erik for his 80s hardcore band State of Confusion, played completely straight but naturally beefed up a fuck-tonne when compared to the original (which you can check out here). Later, the Irish jig medley mentioned at the top—aka the album’s closing title track—serves as a tribute to the band’s roots and their home state which gives the record its name. It may feel a bit random without the context, and is probably way beyond the scope of someone who writes for a blog called Noob Heavy to offer any valid critique on it (maybe Kirk could handle it actually), but either way it’s certainly pretty damn memorable and ultimately further concrete proof of a band who are very sure of themselves and their place in the world.

THE BOTTOM LINE

So there you have it; one of the meanest metallic hardcore bands out there has a mushy little core underneath all the grime and guns and muscle—but maybe don’t say that to their face! What you can say is that Idaho is definitely their best record to date and probably also the strongest metallic hardcore full-length of the year so far. Let it kick you in the face or punch you in the stomach or grab you by the throat or whatever it is you’re into, and once it’s done 18 minutes later you’ll probably wanna go again.