HORDE CASKET
"Xenopocalypse"
Sevared Records
Brutal Death Metal
2017
Tracklisting:
1. The Earth Will Bleed (Intro)
2. The Plague of Humanity
3. Shape-Shifers
4. Uprising
5. Behind You (Interlude)
6. Blood-Scorched Earth
7. Dissection
8. Planetary Obliteration
9. The Ritual
10. The Beyond
11. Nothingness (Outro)
You know, I'm not sure which would terrify me more. Zombie apocalypse or the alien creatures that are on the cover of brutal death metal outfit Horde Casket's "Xenopocalypse" cover art invading earth. I would would probably have to say the latter. That said, time for the review.
For those not familiar with Horde Casket, they are a four piece brutal death metal band hailing from Amarillo, Texas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. "Xenopocalypse" is Casket's fourth official full length release and third in a row under the Sevared Records banner which features Micah Smith on vocals, Steve Giddens on guitar, Justin Perry on bass and Shane Fallon on drums. The album also marks the debut of Micah, Justin and Shane into the Horde's camp.
"Xenopocalypse" is an eleven song horrorfest of brutality that starts off with a 46 second intro entitled "Earth Will Bleed" which is spoken word samples with terrifyingly creepy ambient noise reminiscent of a world scale alien invasion then breaks right in to bludgeoning the listeners ears with "The Plague of Humanity", which itself has a couple of eerie chord progressions along the same lines as the noises heard in the intro mixed in with the utterly brutal music. "Shape-Shifters" continues the eerie chord progressions right from jump again mixed in well with the rest of the brutality going on around it. The fifth track on the album is entitled "Behind You" and is a one minute one second horror movie without words or pictures starting off with creepy piano and a thunderstorm then builds to some weird ass alien type noises in the final seconds. Please don't ask me to describe, it's just creepy as fuck that's pretty much all I can say. That's a good thing by the way. Throughout the whole album, Horde Casket does a great job mixing their tempos up from fast paced blasts to head smashing midpaced riffage. They're also not affraid to throw in some slammy goodness too as evident on the album's eighth track "Planetary Obliteration". Vocals are another great mix of guttural lows to maniacal screaming highs. The guitars and bass have a nice beefy tone between the two of them and the drumming is on point. I would've liked the drums to be a little higher in the mix volumewise and, as a former bass player I can't believe I'm going to say this but, I would've also liked for the bass to have just a tad less volume. Not much but just a little. Again these are my own little nitpicks and have nothing to do with talent because overall this is a great brutal outing by the Texas/Oklahoma four piece. The Horde is also almost set to drop their fifth full length very soon at the time of this review. So go check them out at the links below.
"Xenopocalypse" was recorded and mixed by Kyle MF Clark and mastered by Januaryo Hardy at Insidious Soundlab. Sick cover artwork was done by Remy "Headsplit" Cooper at Headsplit Design and layout for the cd by Wim DeVries.