ALBUM REVIEW: Holy Vore – Blue Ox

It’s been a whole decade since the world last heard from BLUE OX. The Minnesota-based metallic hardcore five-piece released their second full-length, Stray Dogs On Pity Party Island in 2011. Since then, despite the band remaining seemingly active, a follow-up has been slow to manifest itself. Now, it’s finally here in the form of Holy Vore – 20 minutes of grinding, crusty metallic hardcore which picks up pretty much exactly where Stray Dogs… left off. If anything, the band’s sound has grown more popular in the intervening years. The past decade witnessed the much-lauded arrivals of bands like FULL OF HELL and CULT LEADER. We’ve also had critically acclaimed releases from the likes of NAILS and ALL PIGS MUST DIE – bands whose careers were still very much in their early days back in 2011. The landscape is ripe for BLUE OX’s return then, and with Holy Vore, they more than deliver.

The record razors straight out the gate with It Doesn’t Work. Those unfamiliar with the band, or who’ve forgotten what they sound like, should get a good idea pretty quickly. The guitars have that instantly recognisable ENTOMBED-style buzzsaw sound bands of BLUE OX’s ilk have long shown a penchant for. Beneath them, a similarly distorted bass rumbles along, while drummer Dan Johnson injects a driving D-beat pace. This is then wrapped up in the record’s solid production, handled by Adam Tucker. In his hands, Holy Vore sounds exactly like this kind of music should. It has a real raw and gritty feel, while never becoming overly muddy or muffled as is often the risk.

All this provides a solid bedrock for BLUE OX’s vocalist Dennis Hanson, who is arguably the record’s standout performer. Hanson sounds utterly tortured throughout Holy Vore. His abrasive stylings often evoke the likes of CONVERGE‘s Jake Bannon, and drip with a similar sense of emotion. The same is apparently true of his lyrics, although these are invariably hard to discern. Fortunately, the band have provided these for us, with standout expressions of despair including Hanson’s cry of “I find it useless because I’m fucking useless” on third track Fly By Blight, as well as the final lines sung on the record: “Existence is filthy/No one is watching.”

BLUE OX show no interest in pausing for breath after the visceral opening of It Doesn’t Work. Second track Imploding Lazarus is a two-minute D-beat heavy rager which ends on a bludgeoning final breakdown. Fly By Blight after it follows a similar structure, and is no less vicious. The band provide a real highlight however when they take their time as they do on fourth track Left To The Drift. This one starts with a gradually-building mid-paced riff which gives way to a slow headbanger of a verse. The track keeps this sense of stomp throughout, with one of the band’s two guitarists (its unclear which) providing some utterly wild leads in its latter half.

Of course, a record this unyielding in its savagery always runs the risk of losing its sharpness as it progresses. This might happen a bit on Holy Vore, but not to the point that listeners should lose interest.  BLUE OX are never less than raging, and they keep the record’s mosh-ready energy high to the very end. It helps too that the band opt for a sensible runtime of just 20 minutes, getting out long before they outstay their welcome. Sixth track Terrestrial Anxiety provides a later album highlight, opening with deranged screams before kicking into the usual savage fare. The song’s gut-punching breakdowns eventually give way to swirling feedback, which is just about as much of a break as we get on the record. After it, Nostrum Bomb wraps things up with two minutes of no frills, no surprises D-beat hardcore.

It feels like BLUE OX hit the nail on the head with their own Facebook tagline of ‘Harder not smarter.’ Holy Vore isn’t a complicated record, nor does it do anything we haven’t heard before. Instead, it grabs its listeners by the throat and doesn’t let go until it’s finished. In a world where we have plenty of records that do something pretty similar, Holy Vore still sits high on that list. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another decade to hear from BLUE OX again.

Rating: 8/10

Holy Vore is set for release on April 2nd via self-release.

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