Horrendous—'Idol'

Formed in 2009 Horrendous is a former four-man old school death metal band turned progressive death metal band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With three out of four founding members in co-guitarists and vocalists Matt Knox, Damian Herring, and drummer Jamie Knox old fans will still get staples of the writing quirks of the first few albums. Now with the relatively new addition of bass player Alex Kulick adding his own take and bass flare to the overall sound. Before this release, they had three full-length albums in The Chills, Ecdysis, and Anareta that was upon checking a lot more death metal than any kind of prog that people might think of. Idol is their first release on their new record label Season of Mist and is a large departure from their old sound in the best way, a change like this can show how a band can truly evolve from their roots to something impressive. So let us venture in and see how far Horrendous has progressed towards or even beyond their Idols shall we?

This album like a lot of progressive albums starts with an instrumental intro track called prescience. Which at this point already might have old fans in the mindset of “Okay things have changed a bit” opposed to the quick intro then dive right into the chaos first track of their last album. This intro track leads smoothly into the track that really hooked me into the album early in "Soothsayer" which in its almost five minute run time kindly let me know this was going to be an album like I had not heard before! After hearing some people complain that the vocals “killed it for them” I gave them a bit more of a listen to try and understand. It was on my second or third listen when I noticed why I had to really listen for them, as they really blended together with the overall sound so well that it was hard to break it out part by part. If I had to describe the main overall vocal type it would be a more primally aggressive version of At The Gates vocalist Tomas Lindberg mixed with Dallas Toler-Wade formally of Nile. There is a lot of vocal variety beyond the main vocals though, there is a wide range of scream vocals on lead mixed with some melodic vocals throughout and this very raspy version of clean singing from the likes of the aforementioned song soothsayer that make the vocals very unique to mix with the oddly unique sound and songwriting of the album overall.

Moving forward from the vocals we have to talk about the bass as a major stand out! Its smooth tone all but dances around the rest of the music in a seemingly whimsical fashion similar to the last Job For a Cowboy album Sun Eater in fretless beauty! As for the guitars, the distorted tone is pretty good, sort of a progressive standard tone that can kind of get lost in the mix when they are not playing a lead. When it gets quite the clean guitars and keys really get their moment to stand out and shimmer, the drums have a very decent tone as well! This all adds to what this album really has going for it, which can be summed up as having all but perfect atmosphere! As a whole, this group playing and songwriting are basically putting on a masterclass on this album! I am not sure this band can go “mainstream” but this a very good step in the right direction and I would compare it to an album like Autotheism by The Faceless.

There are not a lot of downsides to this album, the major one for me would have to be the overall volume level of the whole album. I have not experienced an album from a group of such talented guys on a record label in which I had crank up the volume so much to hear it somewhat clearly. The album is very experimental which might put off some people off, so I thought I would state it here as the downs are so few and far between that it is worth a mention. Lastly, there is a TON going on in this album musically and at times it can get a bit lost within itself, parts can be a little muddy because of this but this album seems to be doing great things for the band so this could be cleared up for them in the next album as they continue to evolve as songwriters within this new style they have established on this album!

Favorite Track(s)

Standouts on this album were hard, as it is truly amazing as one solid piece of work but hey got to pick some out so here it goes. "Soothsayer" and "The Idoleater" are an amazing first two full tracks that set the pace and tone for the rest of the album to come! Huge shout out to the almost nine-minute epic closers in "Obolus" leaving the listener haunted as it fades out! Honorable mention to "Devotion (Blood for Ink)" and "Threnody" (did I just shout out an interlude, who am I!?)

Rating

Overall I would give this album an A, only missing the + based on how quiet and at times muddy it can be.

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