Since Bullet Tooth launched a little more than a year ago, I’ve been waiting for the label to find its first signature hardcore band. Sure – the label had FIRST BLOOD and MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD as holdovers from the Trustkill days, but I’m talking about new blood (so much blood…); a young, hungry band looking for their shot. Bullet Tooth definitely found this in the Kentucky hardcore DEAD ICONS. Condemned is a behemoth of a debut full-length, a 12 song pressure cooker of fierce, TERROR/FOUNDATION-inspired jams that push few boundaries, but absolutely thump between the lines. The gripping, howled vocals of William Johns mesh well with the tugging, ramming speed attack of the band’s rhythm section. Condemned isn’t set to “breakdown overload”, but the start/stop/mosh passages are frequent and occasionally unorthodox, with drummer Michael Khan doing a little bit of tasteful showboating, especially on the final track “Sincerely”. DEAD ICONS communicate with a forcefulness that’s hard to dislike, and they appear to have a good collective head on their shoulders with lyrics that stick to a humble baseline.  While there’s no shortage of young hardcore bands, there seems to be a real drought of newer bands signing with established larger labels – a few listens to Condemned will make you understand why Bullet Tooth took the chance.