kiss my axe ! - HORN OF THE RHINO "Grengus" -

Sometimes, a simple artwork can help you recognize what musical style is played on a record. A snow-covered landscape? Black Metal! A pile of putrid body parts? Death/Gore! A massive dick surrounded by two goat feet? Doom Me...Wait...WHAT?

Well, spanish monsters Horn Of The Rhino (ex-Rhino before a copyright problem with the name...Check their 2008 'Dead Throne Monarch' release, it's worth it) have done it. But let's stay away from that huge cock and let's take a spin of the album, to see if it's as massive as this drawn hard-on. Well, it is massive but it seems that the spaniards have lost a bit of something since their 2010 album 'Weight Of Coronation'. The music you'll find here is far from being your average slow Doom : indeed, it seems that Horn Of The Rhino have overdosed a bit too much on High On Fire ('Under The Hoof' and 'Waste For Ghouls' could have been written by Matt Pike). Not necessarily a bad choice for me, but nothing that hasn't been done before. The real problem is simply that they don't sound like Horn Of The Rhino but like a High On Fire clone.

So, the fast parts are awesomely fast and barbaric, the way you expect that bunch of Venom-inspired Metal to be done. This should create some very brutal pits, but where Horn Of The Rhino really shines is in the slow parts. This come then to no surprise that the best song of the album is the 11 minutes long 'Brought back', an incredible mix between the best days of Soundgarden (vocalist Javier Galvez is doing an impressive Chris Cornell impersonation) mixed with some Bolt Thrower, even Autopsy. And seriously, how can you resist to lyrics that are that cool?

'Last night I slept with dead gods and they told me to reclaim my throne'

Talking about Soundgarden, the band continue its tradition of giving LP fans a small bonus in the form of a cover track. This time, it's 'Searching With My Good Eye Closed', and Horn Of The Rhino manage to transform the original track into something they could have written themselves. If you remember they previous great cover from 'Disturbing The Priest', you know what to expect again this time. It's just too bad that the rest of the album isn't as good as those two songs, yet it's still better than a lot of other bands in the same league.

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*by Laurent LIGNON*