Do Puppet Vampires Dream of Electric Horses: A Split Review
Both Count von Count and On the Radar veterans Electric Horsemen come out with riffs blazing on their limited-to-300-copies self-released split. The Muppetly-named Delaware four-piece start with “Pharmboss,” and the Lancaster County merchants come forth with “Prairie Witch.” It’s a short blip of a split with just those two tracks plus two others, but a loud one, and each act heaps a heavy shovel-load of sludge in their allotted time. They take turns, rather than divide up the disc into halves, which works here since they have such congruous sounds but might be awkward for bands not so similarly suited.
It’s riffs and screams on “Pharmboss,” which seems a simple enough post-Eyehategod formula until the song opens up to a massive stoner riff at 3:39, showing there’s more to Count von Count than trudging guitars and slow-paced maliciousness. When Electric Horsemen answer back with “Prairie Witch,” it’s almost an echo, since the song, despite some rawer production and volume difference, takes essentially the same tactic. Electric Horsemen sound a little dirtier, a little thicker, but if you were to put this disc on and go do laundry or whatever it is human beings do while they listen to music other than write about it in their pajamas, I’d doubt if the difference would take you aback at all.
And if that’s true for the first two tracks, it’s even more so for the latter half of the split, which starts with the rougher “David Lynch vs. M. Night Shaymalan” from Count von Count and ends with “End of Age” from Electric Horsemen. The vocals on Count von Count’s second contribution come on in both clean and screamed form at once, only adding to the chaos, and the feedback with which they fill the song takes the anger even further. The drums are a little high in the mix as compared to the guitar, but not tragically so. At 3:07, “David Lynch vs. M. Night Shaymalan” is less than half as long as “Pharmboss,” cutting off mid-riff, leading into the Crowbar-esque “End of Age.” Electric Horsemen also feel more vitriolic on their second cut, both bands seeming to have led with what they felt were their strongest but not necessarily angriest songs. For what it’s worth, “Pharmboss” and “Prairie Witch” were both pretty angry, but when “End of Age” goes into full crush-mode, there’s no denying which is the heavier track.
Riff, rumble, crash and scream: these are the starting ingredients of quality sludge. Count von Count and Electric Horsemen are set in this regard, and their split release is just enough sampling of each band to make me want to hear more. With two young, energetic bands like these, I’m sure it won’t belong before I do.
