Horseback Battle Hammer Review

Band	Conan
Album	Horseback Battle Hammer
Type	EP
Released	April 23, 2010
Genres	Stoner Metal, Doom Metal
Labels	Throne Records
Length	32:35

Reviewer :  Kildneybean         Rating :  90 / 100

<To Be Crushed, Engulfed, Then Devoured By Heaviness>

To those who aren't familiar with this band, Conan is a Stoner Doom band from the UK. They show more of a... well, "atmospheric" approach on Doom Metal; an atmosphere that just nonchalantly crushes you with its overly distorted sounds. Bands like Ufomammut and Come My Fanatics era Electric Wizard are in the same vein.

Typical Stoner Doom Metal haters/critics poignantly pick on the genre's repetitiveness, a point which I actually agree on that it can easily pave its own shortcut to a hellish pit of boredom. And when I talk about records that are actually good and pleasing to listen to, I mean records that successfully eschewed that deep chasm in an artsy fashion. "Then how did Conan's second EP do it?" someone might ask. Very good question. Very good question indeed.

For an EP album that runs for half an hour it did a pretty good job on breaking the old-fashioned Stoner Doom Pulverize-Your-Encephalon method up by bending up the tempos. The first song, Krull, starts off in a damn heavy direction. And it drags itself through that road for eight minutes. And almost when you think the song's done, BAM! In your face, a badass heavy, fast-paced riff that blows your mind. The following song is called Satsumo. This song breaks up its own repetitiveness a few more times, and every time those parts pass you by you can't help but feel a sudden quench of thirst; a burst of sound that relieves your arid and parched mind. The next and third song, Dying Giant, is my favorite song from the four candidates on this album. The song builds up this heavy, suffocating atmosphere for the first half of the song. Then at the 3:10 mark the song just erupts by itself, leaving nothing in its path. But soon that whole building is gone and the song returns back to normal, before when all the madness happened. However, after another three minutes or so pass it reaches out for another gasp of air once again. Just like a dying giant's last roar. Pretty amazing song, ain't it? The last song is called Sea Lord, and it's what you'd expect after listening to three songs from this record; high vocals that feel like they're sang from far, far away with extremely heavy guitars underneath. The riffs are golden in this song, and with the vocals they form together a unification of pure "stonedness". A tripping balls type song, if you know what I mean.

This album is one of those records that you can't help but shout out "Holy Hell!"after a full spin. Overall it's a very good record and a definite recommendation for Stoner Doom starters.