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Review: 'WarHorse'
'As Heaven Turns To Ash...'   

-  Album: 'As Heaven Turns To Ash...' -  Label: 'Southern Lord'
-  Genre: 'Heavy Metal' -  Release Date: '23rd February 2015'

Our Rating:
You know it’s going to explode... but when? With a softly picked guitar line, mellow tones and a simmering tension, ‘Dusk’ is two minutes of poised elegance that’s predictably devastated with the opening bars of ‘Doom’s Bride’. A wibbly, dubby bass shakes the floorboards while crushing powerchords grind nine and a half minutes into dust.

‘As Heaven Turns to Ash...’ may have been released 14 years ago but for those of us who missed it first time around, or simply yearned for a digital / vinyl reissue this is a glorious moment to catch up with some unsung masters of doom – especially as the album’s original nine tracks are accompanied by a 7” of their final release, the ‘I Am Dying’ EP. Make no mistake this is an absolute beast of a release.

‘Black Acid Prophecy’ is another nine-minute riff-driven trudge that brings a heavy psychedelic twist, that comes to the fore in the experimental leanings of ‘Amber Vial’. The bass on the moody ‘Every Flower Dies No Matter the Thorns (Wither)’ is practically subsonic, the guitars so heavy and downtuned as so sink harder than quicksand. The vocals are but a niggling presence in the deep, dark thunderous noise.

‘Lysergic: Communion’ brings forth a relentless riff reminiscent of ‘Selfless’ era Godflesh, only with wild noodling on top, an a much fuzzier, sludgier sound instead of the razor-edged industrial precision of Broadrick’s work. The result is 10 minutes of heavy sludge. The result is awesome.

‘I Am Dying’ is gentler, showcasing a trippier, more shoegaze angle that inevitably descends into the bowels of hell. EP Counterpart track, ‘Horizons Burn Red’ is as heavy a cascade of speaker-mangling, doom-laden sludge as you’re likely to hear, the depth of the bass frequencies being little short of damaging on a cellular level.

If you haven’t already surmised, this is staggeringly potent stuff, and truly essential listening for anyone who considers them a fan of anything that falls into the doom / sludge bracket, or simply has an appreciation of music that qualifies as – or in this instance, redefines – ‘heavy’.
  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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WarHorse - As Heaven Turns To Ash...