Horsecore: An Unrelated Story That's Time Consuming

For my first review for this site I chose this album, Dead Horse's debut from 1989.

Dead Horse was a very unique band hailing from Houston, Texas that played a type of metal that was not so easy to define. At first listen, with songs like "Murder song", "Born Believing" and "Crushing of the Irate", you got a distinct hard-core/crossover feeling as the songs go from a catchy riff to quick breakdowns with fast drumming and distinct bass throughout, all with the occasional wild bass line, drum fill, or solo flare-up thrown in that suggests the band is capable of great technicality. Then come "Hank" and "Bewah" and the reviewing gets tough. Yes, to some these songs might seem "out of place", "good-humored", or down-right "corny" (a song about a red-neck with countrified solo-ing?! a slow-paced bass-fronted ode to BEER?!) but, man, I gotta tell ya, these songs still whip-ass, get all over the fret board, and ADD to the greatness of the album by their originality and NOT degenerating into the novelty song realm. And then it's back to straight-up thrash with "World War Whatever", a song with a riff as catchy and right in your face as anything by D.R.I. or S.O.D.

EVERY song on this album is good, there is nothing throwaway here. If anyone finds fault in a song on this, I imagine it will be due to matters of taste or preference, not because the record is under produced, underwritten, or underplayed. You can find a damn killer riff in every song with the added bonus of something quirky thrown in, and thrown in from ANY angle--bass, guitar, drums, lyrics...for these reasons you'll find yourself playing this record again and again over the years. And that's the best testament to this old platter (it was originally only available on cassette and vinyl LP): it still retains all of its power or catchiness over the years without having become dated or obsolete or worse--corny (M.O.D., later Exodus). How many truly great, ORIGINAL thrashy/crossover metal records can you say that about? If you are truly looking for something different (listen to the way a scorcher like "Too close to home" is followed up by the psycho "Scottish-Hell" of "Satan kissed my dog" fame, and tell me this record ain't both a banger and original) that still has the riffs to crack yer neck, you could do a lot worse than picking up a copy of this. If you like S.O.D.’s “Speak English or Die” or something mid-years from D.R.I, like “Crossover” or “Thrash Zone”, I have a feeling you’ll love this. I contend that this record is just as good ,if not better, then anything released by those two bands.