So, once again, I've had the opportunity to hear something that passed me by the first time around. This time its Warhorses; a heavy, hypnotic rock outfit from Detroit. This album's been around since 2009 and the band have a reputation for intense, engaging live shows.
After the short intro of 'Nothing Left to Burn' comes the alluring whisper of 'Terminal Station' a cool, slow burner that beats itself into a swaggering wall of guitars and drums. The sounds change to noisy and sonically charged on 'The Death Toll is Expected to Rise' a track that has all the hallmarks of something you know will take on a bigger life of its own played live.
Next, we get the excellent 'Dead Undone' a song that starts off reminiscent of Pavement's 'Motion Suggests' and then grows into a loud, wailing monster, complete with horns; its easily one of the albums best tracks. There are flourishes of psych on 'Bury Your Dead' the drum patterns beat with military style and precision over a country/psych guitar. '0' is a really heavy stoner number; it drones and pounds its way slowly over its weighty 12 minutes; a stark contrast to the punchy popping of the 2 minuter 'Neverland'. Therein lies the appeal of the LP; the styles are similar enough to maintain the albums tone, but not quite enough to pigeonhole a genre. What you do get is sometimes dark and brooding, often hypnotic but always heavy.
'Flap your Useless' wings is another great example of an album that works better as a whole piece; it's a great late night kind of an album. The atmosphere the band have managed to create lends itself well to being played loud. Very loud.
Check out the Warhorses bandcamp page; you can also stream the really cool EP 'Song of the Month', thats also worth checking out. There's a link for the track 'Crawl' at the end of this review.
Warhorses on Bandcamp
Warhorses on Facebook
Warhorses ReverbNation
After the short intro of 'Nothing Left to Burn' comes the alluring whisper of 'Terminal Station' a cool, slow burner that beats itself into a swaggering wall of guitars and drums. The sounds change to noisy and sonically charged on 'The Death Toll is Expected to Rise' a track that has all the hallmarks of something you know will take on a bigger life of its own played live.
Next, we get the excellent 'Dead Undone' a song that starts off reminiscent of Pavement's 'Motion Suggests' and then grows into a loud, wailing monster, complete with horns; its easily one of the albums best tracks. There are flourishes of psych on 'Bury Your Dead' the drum patterns beat with military style and precision over a country/psych guitar. '0' is a really heavy stoner number; it drones and pounds its way slowly over its weighty 12 minutes; a stark contrast to the punchy popping of the 2 minuter 'Neverland'. Therein lies the appeal of the LP; the styles are similar enough to maintain the albums tone, but not quite enough to pigeonhole a genre. What you do get is sometimes dark and brooding, often hypnotic but always heavy.
'Flap your Useless' wings is another great example of an album that works better as a whole piece; it's a great late night kind of an album. The atmosphere the band have managed to create lends itself well to being played loud. Very loud.
Check out the Warhorses bandcamp page; you can also stream the really cool EP 'Song of the Month', thats also worth checking out. There's a link for the track 'Crawl' at the end of this review.
Warhorses on Bandcamp
Warhorses on Facebook
Warhorses ReverbNation
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