Hög are a band who first crossed my radar a few years ago, when during one of those sleepless nights scrolling through the annals of Bandcamp, I stumbled upon their eponymous EP. Taken aback by the intensity and firepower of their unabashedly ’70s metal throwback sound, I kept a close eye and ear on this power trio, eager for the moment they’d return with new music, preferably in the form of a full length. It took a few years, but as the old adage goes, better late than never! From Portland with despair, Hög invite you all to drift into the filthy riffs and hypnotic grooves of their debut album, Blackhole.
Whereas most ’70s metal worship acts lazily take from the Sabbath playbook (and there are no shortage of Sabbathian leanings on this release), only sporadically acknowledging the other titans from the era, Hög have crafted an album that is truly unique in that it fuses both the former and latter half of the ’70s into one. There’s a sort of streetwise snarl and crank-fueled aggression which dominates the entire affair, clearly reminiscent of Motörhead. Hög takes this attitude, fusing it with fuzzed up riffage and mind-altering jams, resulting in an album that is, as the freakers say, “Out of sight!”
The aforementioned Motörhead influence shines (pun fully intended) on cuts like the hard boogieing “Life Too Late”, high speed “City Witch” and swaggering “Bring You Down”, which pushes things to overdrive during its outro. Again though, while the delivery is clearly motörcharged, the other sonic aspects owe heavily to the early ’70s, evoking shadows of the filthiest rock n’ roll bands prior to Lemmy and the gang. In other words, think the likes of The Stooges, Pink Fairies, and Blue Cheer, the “Summertime Blues” hitmakers being perhaps the biggest influence on Hög out side of the Three Amigos.
Besides their overall griminess and heavier than God ethos, it’s the psychedelic jams of Blue Cheer that are manifested on wild heavy rockers like “Don’t Need You”, “My Mind (Is Getting Heavy)”, and the title track. This power trio boasts a killer sense of cohesion and competency, their instrumental passages not coming off as mindless San Franciscan noodling, but rather blunt instruments of proto-metal torture, sharp enough to cut out your eardrums and soul. The stoned age doom of “Shallow Earth” does a fine job of the latter, sounding straight off Vol. 4, while a reworked “Free” (originally featured on the EP) rivals the finesse of Red Album era Grand Funk: An unhinged psych metal jam for heshers of all ages to freak out to!
In many ways, Hög comes off as the evil twin brothers of fellow revivalists, Magick Potion. Both are eardrum-shattering power trios, one from the east coast (Magick Potion) and the other from the west (Hög), each creating their own fresh spin on the same late ’60s and early ’70s influences. Yet whereas Magick Potion, even at their doomiest, come off as the musical equivalent of an acid dream, Hög are a full fledged acid nightmare come to life, pushing the listener’s sense of being to the brink of chaos and despair in its most primordial form…and they rock while doing so. They’ll “Bring You Down” alright, and you’ll enjoy it.
8 out of 10
Label: RidingEasy Records
Genre: Heavy Metal/Hard Rock
For fans of: Motörhead, Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath