EP Review: Horse Butcher - Horse Butcher
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
For too long have I dallied in the light; wholesome caress of lilting spring sunbeam first coaxing buds to bloom. Gentle breeze ruffling treetops into lilting sway. A V of swans splits the azure canvas above, amid the languid waltz of cirrus cloud, soft beds for the angels. The laughter of children filters through the balmy haze from afar, young families strolling through Eden. O’er yonder, hills roll away, their sweep at lowest ebb revealing sheer blue as Triton’s placid realm arcs away unto the horizon. Cresting waves greet the auburn sands of Albion’s shore before gentle retreat into a luxurious afternoon. Seabreeze and fresh grass; life abundant within an ephemeral glimpse of paradise on earth. My eyelids drift to rest, and my lungs fill, drinking in sweet air, perfumed by the last of the snowdrops, sentinels overseeing the passing of the guard to young bluebell shoots. Warmth...Helios smiles overhead, creation mapped before him and pleasing to his eye. I should feel something. Yet the spirit stirs not, unmoved. Bar the gates of heaven, there is naught within for me. No; I only fit among the filth.
The promo sheet for this EP references Disgorge, Pissgrave, Archgoat, Carcass and Impetigo. Those are all very good words, and they should tell you everything you need to know about Horse Butcher's approach, thick and noisome as the concealing slurry in the abattoir gutter. This brand of necrotic death metal, draped in reeking ordure-leaking viscera, is 100% my “thing”. I’m enamoured with it, positively smitten by it’s fly-blown charms, and Horse Butcher nail the style overall. They’re not quite as extreme as some of their influences, but nonetheless the cloying putrefactive Miasma seeps like blight out every distended pore. It’s a product of several factors. The production must be raw – this simply doesn’t work if the material holds the glittering sheen of, say, a lot of modern unique leader deathcore. The drums must have this leathery thud to them, the wet echo of blows upon hollowed cadavers. Vocals must be a vile, distorted howl, deep and feral like a blockage in the embalming fluid pump. Lastly, your riffs must be disgusting. If we gauge Horse Butcher by these standards they come out with flying colours. “Compressed Cylinder of Brain Matter” ruptures forth in a sickly torrent of old school death metal tremelo riffs and goregrind bellows, whereas elsewhere the unhealthy melodicism of “Sterilant Abuse” is pure mid period Carcass adulation (think the “Necrotism” album).
Horse Butcher – or if you come from Yorkshire, ‘Orse Butcher – do add their own little diseased inflections to the formula to keep the viral strains mutating; harmonic variations in “Pathological Attenuation” for one example, and a riff played with tremolo picking on one guitar and a strummed chords in a hardcore punk pattern on “Paraphilic Dystocia” for another. These ideas don’t break the mould exactly, but they do add fun spins to old tricks, and in help keep things engaging even beyond the rock-solid song construction. I’m irretrievably besotted by it’s goregrind affectations, from the revolting vocal performance to it’s cluster munition blastbeat bombardments. It speaks to me of unwholesome hours spent with gods of gore such as Last Days of Humanity, Inhume, Lymphatic Phlegm, and Regurgitate. The maggot pulse of the bass oozes a gooey, gelatinous thickness into the mix, scored and carved by rusted, makeshift cleavers. Some songs highlight the bass work to excellent effect, most notably “Penduncular Hallucinosis”. Throughout, there’s a practiced ease at evoking the putrid realm of the forgotten morgue, corpses bloated and malodorous, spongy flesh sloughing from fetid, crumbling bones to heap and drip from creaking gurneys. It makes sense that this would be the case considering that the band share members with black/death outfit Hissing, but even so the passion for the sound is plain for all to see.
Tendons are so rotted as to offer minimal resistance; limbs twist off with nonchalant effort. Damp brownish rags flop wetly from the wound, spotted with adipocere. Crawling blankets of flies buzz and probe, fat black kernels of wiry hair and dull, bulbous eyes. The skin is dark and distended by the guts ballooning within. They surrender their stinking cargo with bubbling sibilance as the blade slips through them. Milky orbs gaze sightless out from sunken sockets. I pop one with the scalpel and sigh with satisfaction as jelly slides out like tears to pool in the crevice of an ear. There is nothing that Horse Butcher do that I dislike, so while it would be fair to say I’ve heard better iterations of the style, this is nonetheless a formidable bout of medical malpractice. As a taster for a future full length that I fervently hope will greet us sooner rather than later, I couldn’t be happier. So please, join me at the operating table – I can’t promise you’ll remain clean, but you will at least have a blast.
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