Quite possibly the heaviest and most ferocious album to have come out of Manchester this year, Horsemeat present their debut record, EMBRACE THE ABYSS. I had become very familiar with the grunge trio in 2023 after reviewing their singles RECALL and BRING IT DOWN, with both tracks making an appearance on this album.
Like their previous releases, Horsemeat continues their blistering and hard-hitting style of rock music. The group’s sound merges elements of many genres from grunge, stoner-rock, hard-rock and metal. Their secret weapon is the huge-sounding and heavily distorted guitar that packs an absolute wallop. The group takes their influences from classic groups such as Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Kyuss and mixes together engaging riffs with decimating tones. EMBRACE THE ABYSS is a 15-track titan and there’s a lot of take away from this wall of noise.
The album is full of references to the modern technological age. It takes the listener on a conceptual journey through the world of mobile communication and social media and how the internet is an abyss. The darkness surrounding the album is almost dystopian and yet so familiar at the same time as we further plunder into this emptiness of communicating. The group consisting of vocalist and guitarist, Bert Genovese, bassist and vocalist, Rob Jenkinson, along with drummer, Lewis Kirk have pieced together one of the most exciting rock albums you will hear this year.
The album kicks off with one of its many filler tracks that break up the segments of the album, with song titles referring to the journey into the abyss. The first being UNEARTH THE ABYSS that features audio samples discussing mobile technologies before the intense feedback brings you into the first proper song, OPULENCE. The latter track is a bunch to the face with high speeds and erratic drums. The songs progresses into a stylish groove with rough distorted guitars with chunky palm mutes. The breaks between vocals are massive with the galloping guitars and drums smashing into each other. If this is your introduction to Horsemeat, it’s a big one.
No sooner have we had time to process OPULENCE, it seamlessly transcends into BOROUGH BAIT. Clocking in at just under four minutes, track three is a continuation of those sludgy grooves and somehow the bass and guitars sound thicker than ever. The vocal effects provide a sickly sense of unease over the ringing notes. The verse builds up with intensity and descends into an Alice In Chains-esc chorus. Harmonised vocals and crunchy riffs sound like Layne Staley himself had been resurrected for one last record. Horsemeat however, have a much quicker and more intense sound than AIC and a giddier tempo that makes it feel like we are descending while crashing into objects along the way.
Following our first interval with the uncomfortable feeling of a worrying child, we progress into JIBBER JABBER. The slowest track on the album so far maintains that gritty de-tuned guitar sound. The vocals are also gritter here and more drowned into the guitar production. The cymbals cry out over the guitars as the messages and mood of the album has taken a darker turn. The album was recorded in Salford at 6Db Studios by Simon “Ding” Archer, who has captured the stylings and genre of Horsemeat in such a gallant fashion. The guitars are album to break away from their gritty nature with the lead in the bridge giving a sense of optimism and cleaner tone. It doesn’t last however, before those intense stoner riffs are back.
Embrace The Abyss was mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance East in Boston, MA. That American flavour in the mastering and in the band themselves is what helps capture that overall grunge sound and aids in Genovese’s vocals by the driving force behind the band’s sound. GOUGE MY EYES is a thicker sound with low notes battering the ears. The snare hits sound wet and raw which suits the disgustingly heavy lead note. It’s hard to believe that there’s only three members in this band because the use of pedals and low tunings is making them sound massive. An angelic bridge is a simple transition from the existing formula, but this being one of the longest tracks on the album, there’s plenty of styles.
The track bounces from the rhythm and lead notes midway through the track as if the climbing and breakdown styles are fighting off against each other. It goes without saying, this breakdown of alternative metal stylings is the heaviest moment so far on this album and is one for sweaty mops of hair to be blinding your eyes as you take in the riffage of Horsemeat. Even then there’s still moments of thick stoner-rock before the track is over and done with. Producing this heavier and fritter style enables Horsemeat to write their music in many exciting directions that ticks so many boxes for rock music fans. They’re spoiling us if anything.
RECALL continues the galloping style to which I previously referred to as a classic Mastodon track in my earlier review. It’s a thick guitar delivery with the vocals getting more attention and variety. RUSTED is a cleaner track that sees a bass lead before delving into the familiar crunching riff delivery. Vocals are varied with sonic alterations sounding like radio announcements to the verse where desert rock stylings are damp and hiding behind the wall of noise. Rusted is certainly not the most iconic track on the album, but its title does what it says on the tin. There is a rusty feel to the track, like it was one of the earlier pieces and a thinking point for the overall concept for Horsemeat. The track builds up speed as it talks about destruction and decomposition and is a classy stoner track.
SHAME is a melodic intro of the Alice In Chains variety. We’re higher up the fret board and not relying entirely on the heavier and lower strings to create a dirty and uneasy sound. The vocals are scratchier and the tempo is sticky. It feels like a breathing moment as we direct into the latter half of the album. The vocals are harsher and the vocals lapping up the ability to breathe after being pounded with fuzz and distortion.
BRING IT DOWN is a slick track that I compared the marrying of Kyuss and Glassjaw styles. The track features post-hardcore elements with sweet guitar tones and violent self-deprecating energy. The vocals are at their most vulnerable here, perhaps as if the character in the song is lost beyond saving. Leading on from the most disturbing sample yet with screeching vocals and genuine fear about recording, we enter DARKNESS. Here we have quite possibly the heaviest guitar moment on the album with absolutely unreal ferocity in the guitar’s sound and tempo. Building up on the feeling of dread, the ringing out notes and anxious vocals are like a palpitation in song form. The chorus is high energy and post-chorus groovy with delectable vocal versatility. Darkness is also the longest track on the record with its midsection descending from hopeful lead riffs to spacey and slow rhythm notes. We really have been taken in by the abyss now.
There is no way in telling what direction this track is going in because each verse feels unique from the next. The one main consistency tying it all together is the bouncing bass lead riff. A Soundgarden-esc lead riffs and galloping drums deliver us into the closing minute of the track. The guitar accompanies the bass riff and bursts into one last chorus after we’ve been sent through a track of unknowing and a sick despair.
QUEUE JUMPER is the last full track on the album is one of the most sonically exciting pieces throughout the album. The lead space rock riffs echo out with sadistically evil vocals following them. Everything erupts in moments with the drums gaining speed and vocals crying out into the void. Overall the vocals are uneasy and are a juxtaposition to a guitar riff that is hopeless in its optimism against the track and album’s subject matter.
The only real negative here is how Queue Jumper is a track that should have been further up the album and doesn’t end Embrace The Abyss on a grandiose note. The closing title track however is a piece of uneasy production with additional instrumentation such as synths, acoustic guitars and percussion guiding us into this abyss. It leads us into the feeling that there’s something more to come, hopefully another Horsemeat album. Whilst Queue Jumper had its disappointments, EMBRACE THE ABYSS feels like an expected outro only to progress into starting the album again.
Horsemeat have produced one of the finest rock albums of 2024 and for a lot of the 2020’s in general. Their groundbreaking delivery in styles, sounds, tempos, themes and overall revival of a pure grunge sound is admirable. They are setting themselves in their own league and have crafted away at producing an album that delivers as much as it can. There is only a small few moments on the album that show any falter, perhaps they’re out of place or maybe we just wanted a bit more from them. Perhaps as a listener we are spoiled and like the album’s commentary on the internet age, we are never truly satisfied. Simultaneously I will argue that if you want to sit down with a brutal and engaging rock album then look no further.
Every so often you will find an album of pure rock that’s more than an experience. It’s an album that takes you on a journey through the flavours and styles that rock and its sub-genres have to offer. Instrumentally it pushes its boundaries, vocally it sets itself apart with different directions and usually provides with a long track listing of killer and no filler. Think Superunknown by Soundgarden, Songs For The Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age, Embrace The Abyss by Horsemeat.
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