THE MELVINS
Nude With Boots
(Ipecac)

HERMANO
...Into the Exam Room
(Regain)

UNLEASHED
Hammer Battalion
(SPV)

RUN YOUR MOUTH
3-Way HC/Garage Split
(Rumour Control)

CABRóN
Mexican Shoe Thief
(Robot Enemy)

A HORSE CALLED WAR
Stumble at Every Hurdle 

(Calculon)

HEATDEATH
S/T 

(Conspiracy)

MORE REVIEWS

Gimme the sludge man.  And if you’ve been missing the corrosive and incisive sounds of Eyehategod and, if you’ve dug a little deeper, Iron Monkey, I can’t do anything else but recommend you this young UK quintet. Stumble at Every Hurdle is a five song EP (following their first Ep We Ain’t Proud of This) that like some of the Iron Monkey material is made of massive songs. “Son and Heir of a Mongrel Bitch” isn’t just a great song title, in the hands of this quintet this sludge epic moves from mid tempo to slow-motion to dead tempo and then picks back up again and then dies again and then sort of turns itself into a different song that sprints and dies back and forth for two more minutes.   All this with a guitar sound that is hair-raisingly electric and vocals that channel distorted images of tragedy. Sure thing; about eight minutes later you are ready to give shit up or run for the door.

No joke. Like most high level sludge, A Horse Called War create challenging music. It is not to be taken lightly and it is not for the weakling, the lighthearted or the Charlotte Church fan. Albums like this are especially designed to punish the listener, to lock him into submission. Ultimately though, Stumble at Every Hurdle lacks the most engaging aspects of any of the Iron Monkey recordings.  During the first three songs this band gives its best to unleash distortion and slow riff after slower riff of pure discontent. “Live to Loose” is a welcomed change; it’s got speed and several breakdowns. And it maintains that tiring pace for a good two minutes before it turns into nightmarish and perverse doom. Definitely challenging.

MySpace