By now most people likely have an idea as to what Iron Reagan are up to, but in case not just close your eyes and imagine a rapid-fire, crossover alter ego to Municipal Waste. Everything’s sharp and well-polished, from the choppy riffing and gang back-ups to Tony Foresta’s motormouth lyrical delivery. They might not be as mean and ugly as Power Trip but, heck, you sure can’t deny they know what they’re doing.
Gatecreeper have been lurking around the place for a couple of years now, and their having releases on Closed Casket Activities, A389 and King Of The Monsters helps set the scene a bit. They play dense, heavy, metallic hardcore of a type that tips its cap to His Hero Is Gone but owes a far greater debt to the likes of Entombed and Dismember: murky, claggy shit that sticks to the roof of your mouth and threatens to choke you if you gulp it down too fast. As with much of this stuff it’s easy on the ear and hard to fault aesthetically or technically, but at the same time sounding so commonplace that it’d be hard to pick them out in a line-up.
Fine, then.