IRON GATE

Iron Gate from New Hampshire is one of the newer bands of this ilk, merging beatdown hardcore breakdowns with death metal-style guitar work and ferocity. Already delivering a taste of this to a couple of shows in Worcester and their home state, they’ve shown that they stand tall alongside their contemporaries in the New England scene.

The Iron Gate story began in August of 2022, after lead singer Jeff made a post online asking, “Who plays an instrument and wants to play heavy, ignorant music?” Jeff soon received a message from Jake who became the band's drummer. After a few personnel changes, Iron Gate rounded out the current lineup of Billy on guitar and Matt on bass.

Despite only having one guitarist Jeff explains that it actually helps make them heavier stating, “We originally were gonna do two guitarists but then I went to the Torn In Half record release show and they had one guitarist and they sounded so heavy and not so muddied and so Jake suggested ‘let’s try that!’”

Iron Gate’s style focuses heavily on making the aforementioned breakdowns of their songs as heavy as possible, studying from many of the great mosh-centric bands with death metal influences cropping up as of late.

“We had a song written which is on the EP that was originally in Drop B tuning but as soon as Billy (guitars) joined he was like, ‘We’re going to G Sharp and I’m using 7-strings.’ A lot of his influences are bands like Paleface, Pieced Up, and Bodysnatcher so that’s where we get a lot of these gigantic breakdowns from," says Jeff.

Expanding further on the list of influences, Jeff cites his own favorites: “Bands like Traitors, Bodysnatcher, and The Acacia Strain. I think the band that inspired me to take this band in this direction has to be Gates to Hell. The crunch of the band's guitars and the relentlessness of them is what makes Iron Gate’s breakdowns particularly ignorant and heavy. Coming from a metalcore background assists in their delivery, once kids hear their sound there’s bound to be an increase in black eyes in pits across New England.

Iron Gate has yet to release any music until now as they deliver to No Echo readers the first taste of their forthcoming Throne of the False God EP with the track “The Descent” which features vocals from Blood Tithe’s vocalist Justin Whipple. Justin also did the artwork and logo for the EP which boasts some of the sickest artwork from a death metal/slam band. Bashing you over the head immediately with the fast drum beats it soon takes a hard turn into the first crushing breakdown before chugging along again into an even filthier one before ending the affair with a cataclysmic breakdown.