Los Angeles’ Ho99o9, a frenetic whirlwind of punk and hip-hop immersed within a cinematic splurge of horror inspired personas, have come to take over with their debut album ‘United States of Horror’; pure and simple, but the take over may be less intense than previously expected.
The band are known for incredibly heavy beats on tracks such as ‘The Dope Dealerz’ which recently got the dance floor bulging in admiration as main support for The Dillinger Escape Plan’s final UK tour. This, their debut full length, has allowed Ho99o9 more room to experiment with their sound, both on soundscapes used previously but also new and exciting territory which puts them in a more industrial arena in places and even more commercial, ‘Fat of The Land’-esque territory.
The intensity has also been ramped up beyond previous levels with this release. Tracks such as ‘Bleed War’ and ‘Street Power’, which after the initial intro drop into a fast-paced punk run, before the deep bass synonymous with Ho99o9 sinks back in. The dual vocal delivery of “look into my eyes” brings another crazed and delirious break before a sample of “these are freaks that you’re watching here” perfectly surmises the group’s intention. They are finding a niche of oddity and weird that is enabling them to speak to an audience about the wrongs in our society and this is no bad thing at all.
‘Face Tatt’ is as angry as it gets on this release: “you don’t know me, I don’t owe you shit, fuck the police” gives a taste of the lyrical direction of this track. ‘Money Machine’ ramps up the intensity levels again, the bass piano note as far down the left hand side of the keyboard as is physically possible, the lyrical delivery other-worldly in places. The twosome have really gone out of their way to produce soundscapes of terror and discomfort and give credence to the fact that Deathkult is experiencing metamorphosis.
The intro to ‘Knuckle Up’ sounds straight out of ‘All Invaders Must Die’ before the party kult vibes distinguish this sound as purely Ho99o9. The breakdown is heavy, before the lackadaisical vocal delivery is replaced by prose spat rap – the chorus deeply industrial and mesmeric.
‘Dekay’ makes for some truly disturbing listening and is closer to brown noise, whereas the return to the punk number ‘Sub-Zer0’ displays Ho99o9’s layered ability, with lyrics such as “I don’t like the way you smell” transporting you back to a garage punk sound. There is also a treat of blurry guitar giving a dreamy mid-section to an otherwise angry offering. Some of the interlude soundscapes feel strangely placed in the scaled out view of the album, but live they will probably be useful in terms of linking tracks and the different sound pallets that Ho99o9 bring.
Overall this album stumbles (where it may have been expected to roar) over the finishing line. There are some outstanding tracks such as ‘New Jersey Devil’ and ‘United States of Horror’, which both display the full spectrum of what Ho99o9 bring to the party. There is a distinct lack of the heavy beats and drops that have encapsulated this band to date and often in places the desired attempt for plain old weird replaces what could otherwise have been improved songmanship. But hey, this album is varied and as full to the brim with lyrical intensity as it could possibly be; it lives up to the mix of soundscapes that Ho99o9 offer from the fast, adrenaline-spiked punk to the full range of hip-hop delivery.
It will be interesting to see how these songs play out live within the theatre and panache of their on-stage persona. There is no doubt that this is where they really outshine their competitors and despite the album perhaps not reaching interstellar proportions throughout, there is enough to warrant an admiring riposte because, at the very least Ho99o9 are still doing what they do best – not only dazzling in the limelight of the anti-status quo but providing a semblance of political rhetoric within a world that is also going very mad indeed.
DAVE BULL