Forget Radiohead. Stop scratching your chin and deconstructing every sentence Lou Reed ever said. Don’t even bother trying to figure out what Kanye’s going to do next. Because Ho99o9 are here and they’re ridiculous.
The New Jersey duo, comprising theOGM and Eaddy, are one of the biggest question marks to hit popular, rock or any other music in the past few years. It’s hip hop. It’s industrial. It’s hardcore punk. It’s all those things and more viewed through a spooky lenticular filter that its creators have dubbed ‘deathkult’.
And, whatever someone on Reddit might tell you, they’re not really like Death Grips. Sure, Ho99o9 deliver their own messed-up amalgam of hip-hop and rock, but that’s pretty much where the comparison ends. Ho99o9 take the latter element further.
Here you’ve got stuff like Bleed War, which operates with a sleazy Rob Zombie beat before throwing you into Ministry-worthy double bass drum blasts. Then you’ve got New Jersey Devil, which is essentially Dead Kennedys opening the pit up at a Slayer gig.
And that’s what Ho99o9 do so seamlessly over the majority of this record: pit the aggression of hip-hop and hardcore against that hulking, perverted precision exclusive to industrial. Eaddy and theOGM are messed-up mouthpieces, venting their frustrations through walls of static, trip hop drum loops, rapping, screaming, inane babbling and messy thrash metal riffing.
It’s not all fun and hate, though. The record’s avant-garde endnote, Blaqq Hole, comes off as a curious Skinny Puppy throwaway rather than the fully-fledged, atmospheric industrial climax it aims to be. Moneymachine and Hydrolics are two points where Ho99o9’s grip noticeably slips, too. Both are atmospheric, deeply disturbing tracks, but they just feel slightly out of place on ‘United States of Horror’. These more hip-hop-oriented cuts would’ve maybe fit better on their own fully developed EP.
So no, Ho99o9’s debut isn’t perfect. It could probably lose a couple of tracks for the sake of fluency. And, if you want to be really picky, their live show’s raw energy isn’t bottled as potently here as it might have been (the jury's out on whether something like that can be bottled at all). As an opening salvo, ‘United States of Horror’ is an essential listen and a promising sign of what awful, disgustingly violent music we can look forward to in years to come.
Ho99o9 Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Mon June 19 2017 - DUBLIN Workmans Club
Tue June 20 2017 - MANCHESTER Rebellion Rock Bar
Wed June 21 2017 - LONDON Underworld
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