Muscular metal from Denmark, with balls
The last track here, on this the major label debut from Danish five piece Helhorse, features as its last track, a song called “No Fucks Given.”
Call a song that, and let’s be fair, you kinda know that they aren’t going to be the type of band to sing songs about lacing daises into your loved one’s hair while the sun sets and you enjoy a nice picnic – it does, however, sound a little like Clutch at their most cheesed off and rhyme “circus” with “ruckus”, so let’s crack on shall we.
This is just about the type of record you would expect – and to be fair want – a band called Helhorse to make. Think Black Label Society and you wouldn’t be too far away – there was talk of Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy from the band, and while you can see what they mean if you look hard enough, particularly in the downtuned, massive and thick riffs – “Blood Boiler” is particularly mighty, this instead is the sound of a band that acknowledges its influences rather is a slave to them.
Shorter and rather more to the point than this type of music often is, the songs are well-honed fighting machines. Ones too with more subtleties and light and shade the more you look, the bluesy almost ballad-like “Fortune Favours The Bold” is designed with big plans in mind.
Largely, though, “Helhorse” are the type of band who is happier with its head banging and its feet on the monitor on a beer fuelled underground club. The absolute highlight here, the absolute jewel in his particular dirty crown, is the wonderful “Hell Of A Ride”. Starting with a roar from singer Mikkel Wad, it really wants to get the job done – it does too, and you sense that these lines in its first verse “always fuck the norm/take some fucking charge/you might lose it all/but at least you showed some fucking balls” are more than important to the band.
There’s even a foray into more hardcore areas with the viscous “Raise The Black Flag”, while “My Haven/Your Hell/” swings like a wrecking ball, builds itself a wall of sound and wants to salt the earth just for fun – all this and its got the type of chorus that is simply begging for fists to go in the air and yell it.
Ultimately that’s the point to this it seems. This is very much the record that Helhorse wanted to make and they have done it extremely well. The soundtrack to the next Hells Angel’s rally you go to is right here.
Rating 8/10
