Release Date: May 30th 2025. Record Label: Iodine Recordings. Formats: DD/Vinyl
A Malign Star - Tracklisting
1.Saboteur 04:22
2.A Malign Star 04:25
3.Shallowness 05:10
4.The Somnambulist 04:13
5.House Of Burden 03:43
6.Illumination 06:20
Members
Alex Garcia-Rivera - Drums
Matt Woods - Bass + Vocals
Adam Wentworth - Guitar + Backing Vocals
Review
Doom/Stoner Metallers Bloodhorse are back after a sixteen year absence with their extraordinary sophomore record A Malign Star. Bloodhorse is made up of members from American Nightmare, The Red Chord, and All Pigs Must Die. A brilliant line-up of musicians who have perhaps seen it all within the underground scene and beyond. Bloodhorse tread a fine line of Punk, Doom, Sludge, Stoner and Post-Metal on this record where the music is direct and offers quite a human soul to the superb lyrics the band have written for the album.
The songs each tell their own tale with Bloodhorse forging a subtle Sludge/Stoner Metal backdrop of aggressive melodies and superb vocals from Matt Woods and Adam Wentworth providing excellent backup vocals when the mood calls for this. The record is quite stripped back with it’s Hardcore Punk production values allowing everything to be played quite organically. The music is always melodic with touches of MELVINS and MASTODON up-tempo instrumental changes with a cool sideline in Psych and Prog Metal harmonies forming when you least expect it.
The record is quite brief, running under thirty minutes but Bloodhorse gets everything said and done within that timeframe with A Malign Star feeling on twice as long. There is a never ending assortment of different Prog Sludge/Stoner Metal passages which offer a classic “METALLIC” sound that reminds me of the good old days of RELAPSE RECORDS ruling the underground Sludge Metal scene back in the day.
Bloodhorse do experiment with different Progressive and Melodic themes where distorted environments appear when you least expect this especially on standout tracks such as Saboteur, A Malign Star, Shallowness and Illumination having the heaviest, catchiest and most original grooves on the whole album.
This album does have a similar sound and creative approach to Bloodhorse’s classic 2009 album HORIZONER though this time round the band just get straight down to business of playing sublime instrumental passages which bridges the gap between Post-Metal and straightforward Stoner Metal surroundings with expert precision.
A Malign Star is a breathtaking, unmissable and exhilarating ride with Bloodhorse on truly majestic form from start to finish that easily allows this album to be ranked as one of the best “comeback” records of recent years. It’s seriously that good. I’m hoping for more from BLOODHORSE in the near future but if that’s not meant to be then that makes A Malign Star even more of such a special record.
Words by Steve Howe
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