Haunted Horses – Dweller

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Haunted Horses Dweller review

Making noise is something of an end in itself, a cleansing purge or a cathartic blowout. But it serves other purposes, whether as a nihilistic or profane affront to mainstream norms upon noise rock’s genesis in the late ’80s or as a critique of modern horrors, as is the domain of much of today’s batch of son-of-pigfuck brutalizers like Chat Pile. One could argue that an anxiety-ridden age like the present was probably ripe for a fertile resurgence of noise rock—there’s a reason why the latter made our Album of the Year for 2024—but that wave is only a full decade later finally catching up to Seattle’s cacophonists Haunted Horses.

Sixteen-year veterans of playing post-punk tinged noise rock that grows a few shades darker and a few decibels louder with each release, Haunted Horses craft meticulously shaped monuments to panic and terror. Their fourth album, the Three One G-released Dweller, simultaneously presents some of their most immediately satisfying and relentlessly blood curdling material, wrapping their guitar shrieks and bass thrum in industrial armor. From the ominous drone that whirs through the opening of leadoff track “Dweller on the Threshold,” there’s no sense of comfort to be found here, no safe harbor, and the path only grows more treacherous.

As Dweller ratchets up the tension and palpable prickles of primal fear, however, the more exciting it gets. Haunted Horses are a deeply physical group, every element of their music possessing a kind of percussive quality in its brutal immediacy that still often finds a deep groove within the onslaught, whether via Brian McClelland’s hypnotic bass groove and Myke Pelly’s driving rhythms in “The Spell” or the apparitional anti-melodies of “Fucking Hell.” Even a standout like “Grey Eminence” is paradoxically catchy in its relentless stomp as well, in spite of the fact that, amid its low-end throb and high-end shrieks, it has little in the way of a discernible melody (Details…).

Haunted Horses’ default position is absolute mayhem; check the deliciously malevolent industrial nihilist disco of “Destroy Each Other” or the direct, furious gallop of barnburner “Dweller in the Abyss” for some of their most accessible permutations. But give them the opportunity to slow down their chaos engine a bit on “Temple of Bone,” descending into a more luxuriously gothic realm as vocalist Colin Dawson adopts his most vampiric croon rather than an anguished bark, and Haunted Horses grow even more elegant within their harrowing aesthetic. They wear such refinement well, even when they’re at their most fun just letting their instruments absolutely fucking have it.


Label: Three One G

Year: 2025


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