Ingrown – Idaho

vote
8.0

• Band:
  Ingrown
• Duration: 00:18:16
• Available since: 07/03/2025
• Label:

• Closed Casket Activities

The Ingrown return with their second album, “Idaho”, a job that releases a primordial and overflowing energy, confirming the trio of Boise as one of the most hungry realities of the contemporary hardcore scene. The title, perhaps a reference to the famous “Iowa” of the slipknot, seems to want to underline the band's outsider status, coming from a often ignored state, but determined to impose itself with ferocity and determination.
Compared to the “Gun” debut, which had already left interesting ideas, “Idaho” represents a clear and decisive step forward. The Ingrown refine their formula, both on the sound yield and on that of songwriting, keeping the overall duration of the proposal on extremely reduced levels – eighteen minutes of pure devastation – but managing to condense in this short period of time an extremely flooded mix of power and dynamism.
The band's hardcore roots – in its most cafon meaning, that of Cold As Life or 25 Ta Life – are unmistakable, but the power influence, that of the more 'restored' fringe of the genre, emerges here with even greater arrogance. The urgency with which the pieces are played and the lucid speed with which the structures evolve recall realities such as the weekend Nachos, with essential and yet always rather reasoned songs, marked by marked time changes and a punctual alternation of registers. Do not underestimate an undoubted dose of Death Metal, in the form of an Obitogy restoration riffs that seem to emerge from nothing just to impose themselves in front of everything and overwhelm the listener.
Each trace is therefore a small device ready to detonate, an organized chaos where nothing is left to chance. The group works with undoubted precision despite the gracture of its voracity, avoiding that repetitiveness is insinuated in the short and burning compositions. The result is a sort of controlled vortex, in which very rapid and groove discharges are intertwined naturally, showing that the Ingrrown do not just crush on the accelerator, but they also know how to steer at the right time to make the listening experience even more powerful and at the same time interesting.
Wanting to wade to the contemporary scene, at the level of rhythmic system and sound impact, a parallel with the nails can be appropriate: in fact, even the ingrown adopt such a minimal, direct and brutal approach, although their sound remains all in all anchored to the hardcore than the fury, in the latest decidedly metallic releases, of the Californian band. But what really characterizes “Idaho” is the attitude of the trio led by the guitarist/singer Ross Hansen: arrogant, beaten, almost split, in perfect balance between safety in his own means and a primitive anger, fueled by the awareness of coming from an area A by a context often underestimated. The group sounds as if he wanted to demonstrate that he is better, genuine and hungry for many others. This determination translates into a disc that sounds like a straightforward declaration of intent, in the name of a concentrate of aggression that refuses any compromise and which imposes itself for spontaneity and expressive urgency.
“Idaho”, in essence, therefore proves to be one of the most incisive works of the year in this panorama: an album that does not give breath, which is a mockery of the conventions and that, just like the land from which it comes, shows an authentic and inevitable rudeness. The Ingrown do not try to please everyone, but anyone who is looking for an extreme sound experience and without filters will find here a test that grows with listening and that punctually affects with the strength of a fist in the face.