In the valley of absolutely soul-drained, uninspired modern stoner/sludge bands, Horseskull shine like a corundum in a bowl of mud. There are three kinds of bands in my opinion. The first type, you hear them and at the time of the third second you know that the music is going to be complete piss. The second type - you listen to several songs and feel like they have something, maybe some potential to develop; and the third type of band just grabs you by the balls and you really don't need to hear much to know they will get you going. Horseskull were that king of band for me, from song number one I knew I was going to dig them, dig them hard.
Their style of metal can be described as greasy, low-tuned, angry badass solo-infused sludge, if you might like. The pace of the majority of the album is too fast to fit in your regular sludge metal description, but the vocal style and general delivery sound as pissed as the baby of Disrupt and Crowbar. The solo guitar won't get tired for a minute and you'd just be buried under a wave of awesomeness of soloing. I am not kidding, the fuzz wizard is strong here. There are tiny acoustic bits here and there, but not too much and I'd say, exactly the appropriate amount to never make the record in general cheesy. I mean, cheese is as far from this band as your cat is from graduating from Harvard. The final punch is the last song that would delude you to be a desert trip and then bring you with a bang to reality. Class. The only problem with this album is that it is too short.
Alrightie, to sum this up, if you like your doom, sludge or whatever distorted heavy music low and cool and unstained from posers and retro dressed chicks and falcettos, here you go.
