HORSE BUTCHER – Horse Butcher

vote
7.0

• Bands:
  HORSE BUTCHER
• Duration: 00:20:00
• Available from: 12/20/2024
• Label:

• Sentient Ruin

Streaming not yet available

The Horse Butchers are a new reality on the thriving American Pacific Northwest circuit. The lineup, now making its debut with this eponymous EP, includes members of the infamous Hissing, who find themselves here experimenting with sounds that mark a rather decisive detachment from the avant-garde and highly dissonant approach of the main project, in favor of an immersion in the visceral territory of certain death-grind with a gore background. However, it should immediately be underlined that the musicians' past is not completely abandoned, given that to a rough base inspired by bands such as the first Exhumed and the Mexican Disgorge, Ours tries to add more atmospheric and murky nuances, giving a more unpredictable touch to the proposal .
The shorter songs on the EP tend to refer more to the old school of the genre, with vaguely catchier riffs dictating modes and tempos within a deliberately dirty, almost claustrophobic sound performance, which in some respects amplifies their immediate impact . A piece like the opener “Pathogenic Attenuation” seems to leave no doubt about the band's intentions, but the overall picture becomes richer as the listening progresses.
The true heart of the EP lies in fact in the more complex songs, such as the long and oppressive “Sterilant Abuse”; here the group demonstrates an interesting ability to play with dynamics: after a tight start that obviously recalls tradition, the track opens up to darker passages saturated with distortion, for a contrast that elevates the piece compared to the rest, highlighting the desire to explore new paths for kids.
The EP as a whole is in fact punctuated by a sort of duality that reflects the very nature of Horse Butcher. The titles of the tracks are another emblematic example: on the one hand we have direct and crude names such as “Unnecessary Amputation”, which seem to have come straight from the death-grind manual, on the other there are more cryptic titles such as “Penduncular Hallucinosis” , which betray the most refined background of the training. It is this double soul that makes the project rather curious from the very beginning, signaling its design between the primitive urgency of the grind and a more stratified aftertaste which can recall the rest of the band members' musical baggage (or contemporary realities like the Pissgraves).
If there is a risk in this approach, it is that it can at times appear neither fowl nor fowl, with the contrast between brutality and atmosphere potentially capable of alienating more traditional listeners. However, it must be recognized that the overall cohesion is maintained, thanks also to the group's ability to balance its influences without overdoing it.
Ultimately, Horse Butcher's debut is a fairly intriguing work: a mini that manages to function both as a tribute to the roots and as an exploration of future possibilities, allowing a glimpse of a potential that, if adequately developed, could lead the band to carve out a its space in the extreme panorama.