RockBox - Warhorse - As Heaven Turns To Ash

Warhorse - As Heaven Turns To Ash

Band Info:

Genres: Sludge / Doom Metal
Origin: Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Formed In: 1996
Status: Split-up

Last known line-up:
Mike Hubbard - Vocals, Drums
Jerry Orne - Vocals, Bass
Terry Savastano - Guitar

Former/past members:
Todd Laskowski - Guitar
Krista Van Guilder - Vocals, Guitar

About Band:
Quote:

Warhorse (not to be confused with the early 70s band Warhorse) are a Doom metal band that formed in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1996, and released their debut album "As Heaven Turns to Ash" on Southern Lord Records in 2001. They officially disbanded in 2005.
Warhorse was easily comparable to an American version of Electric Wizard. They combine crushingly heavy, slow, Sabbath-esque riffs with "tunnely"/"spacey", yet slightly rough, vocals. This is as heavy as it gets.
Warhorse takes this proven formula and does it well. Also added in are acoustic passages and several instrumentals. There are also numerous "quiet" parts, where the guitar is turned down very low, and the bass is the prominent sound. These provide necessary and welcome breaks from the crushing weight of the standard passages.

Discography:
1997 - Warhorse (Demo)
1998 - Winter (Demo)
1999 - Lysergic Communion [EP]
2000 - The Priestess [EP]
2001 - As Heaven Turns to Ash
2002 - I Am Dying [EP]

This torrent includes:

2001 - As Heaven Turns to Ash
Track List:
----------
1. Dusk [01:55]
2. Doom's Bride [09:18]
3. Black Acid Prophecy [08:54]
4. Amber Vial [03:27]
5. Every Flower Dies No Matter The Thorns (Wither) [08:35]
6. Lysergic Communion [10:15]
7. Dawn [01:48]
8. Scrape [10:31]
9. ...And The Angels Begin To Weep... [01:30]

Quote:

Bludgeoning Doom...Crushing Subsonic Bass with Obscenely Overdriven Guitar --these words are paraphrased from the Band's website. I normally wouldn't even consider starting out a review with pre-release propaganda from a band or label's website, but, y'know what? These guys may actually be one of the relatively few metal bands who can back up their cocky claims of supremacy.

As someone who's been loving metal since the seventies, I've never been more puzzled by a retro movement that this latest "stoner/doom metal" craze. First of all, I bet Ozzy, Tony, Geezer, and Bill, themselves, are shrugging at how revered their sludgy, bass heavy, sound has become thirty years later; and, secondly, much of this latest wave of "doomania" doesn't really sound much like the music it's trying to emulate anyway, with tempos way slower than vintage Sabbath, and growled, death metal vocals (such as those of Bongzilla and Burning Witch), which are far removed from Ozzy's menacing wail.

All of the above said, when it's as good as the new Warhorse does it here, who cares about authenticity? These guys have been around since the mid-nineties, already having undergone "Spinal Tap-esque" personnel changes, but just in time for the REAL new millenium they have exploded on to the scene like a depth charge with their first full length album. This power trio makes no promises of early 'seventies authenticity, referring instead to this dose of dusk-'til-dawn doomy dirges as being like "death metal on quaaludes." First of all, yes, the vocals are gruff, but they are effectively recessed into the thick smoke of guitar fuzz; and the inananely stoned out lyrics are sparse, so that the album feels more instrumental than anything else. Secondly, the quiet "flowers and beads" interludes are mostly acoustic, quite effective, and authentic-sounding (not the electronic, almost ambient stuff, that many retro albums try to pass off as "spacey psych." music) with an eastern flavor, that feels like walking through a heavy haze of incense into a c.1970 drug den with beads hanging in the doorway. Then, of course, these 2-4 minute "soothing, trance-inducing interludes," as the official Warhorse website's album description calls them, are rudely offset by 8-10 minute viciously viscous tar pit death marches, with classic titles like "Lysergic Communion." If anyone's wondering about the sound quality (although that's usually not a primary concern with albums like this), it has amazing transparency and dynamic range, for such a dense, distorted, and "maxed out" recording.

If you have any interest at all in ULTRA heavy, over-the-top, subterranean sounds, and you like to hear it extra low and slow, at least once in awhile (like Saint Vitus; Electric Wizard; Cathedral's, Forest of Equilibrium; Earth 2; or Type O Negative's, World Coming Down), and you don't like or need a bunch of synth/keyboards in your metal, you probably NEED to have this album. I normally can't stand reviews that make claims like this, but...I have to wonder, at least: is this the doom metal album to end all doom metal albums?

Doom

Sludge / Doom Metal

320 k

129.13 MB

10 files

30/01/2009

Seed(s): 0, Leecher(s): 1 = 1 Peer(s)

27/03/2016 13:39:39