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HORSE BUTCHER “Horse Butcher” EP
HORSE BUTCHER “Horse Butcher” EP
By Dr. Abner Mality
The band name is gruesome...the cover art is unspeakably worse...and the song titles promise audio gore in the early CARCASS/IMPETIGO tradition. Yet even knowing all that going in, you’re still not gonna be ready for the sheer FILTH and brain-scraping horror of HORSE BUTCHER.
The band has arisen from avant-garde death metallers HISSING, who also push boundaries, but in a different way. With HORSE BUTCHER, we get a total tribute to CARCASS when they were down-tuned architects of revulsion as well as sonic terrorists like WACO JESUS, LIVIDITY, old SUFFOCATION and IMPETIGO. Somehow, HORSE BUTCHER’s tunes are encased in a wall of gunk even thicker and uglier than what their inspirations created. First track “Pathogenic Attentuation” shocked even me with its repulsive ugliness and I’m almost impossible to shock. It starts with the sound of monstrous slobbering and gasping and then swings into an absolute wall of grinding death. The slobbering continues in the background for the whole track, adding to the horror. The funny thing about the tune….and all of HORSE BUTCHER’s tracks in general...is that there are actual riffs that are quite catchy. Somehow, tracks like “Compressed Cylinder of Brain Matter” and “Unnecessary Amputation” have not only structure but swing! This makes it so much more effective than most modern goregrind and war metal.
Last track “Sterilant Abuse” stretches out to more than five agonizing minutes and brings death-doom into the equation. There’s an almost industrial/power electronics feel to the extremity here yet things remain resolutely in the realms of brutal death and grind. In a world where I’m increasing bored with by the book death metal, HORSE BUTCHER succeed due to sheer unapologetic filthiness. Latch on...if you’re able!
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