The boys in Whitehovse did not make a good first, second, or third impression when I got their email with an EPK promising a code I never saw. Then I saw how they spell their name: WTF? Seriously??? Then their EPK had a lot of good info, but NO LINK to the music. Then I saw their asking price of $7 for the album. It was a hard pass…
Until it wasn’t.
Beneath the startling price for an unknown was the whole discography for 50 cents more. Okay, dudes. I’m in.
Whitehovse: The Mighty One
The mastering of The Mighty One manages to have less bass than …And Justice For All. It sounds like a drunk Lars Ulrich mastered it on a Delta 8 binge. And it’s deliberate!!!!
In terms of musicality on the debut album “The Mighty One”
-Whitehovse EPK
, we prioritize varied guitar riffs with
fuzzy sounds and rather heavy bass lines, followed by the dynamics of the music tempo which
changes tempo in each song, and vocals that balance with the instruments as well as several
additional effects that make the atmosphere in each song a bit heavy and gloomy.
They forgot to mention how the drums are buried so far back that the cymbals sound like echoes from 10 miles away.
The worst part of Whitehovse’s The Mighty One is that it’s incredible. Frustratingly, agonizingly great. Not good, but great. The songs are tight as a snare drum (not that you can hear it). Every vocal line is like an anthem, buried as they are by at least 10 dB under the guitars. These guys write prime Stoner rock riffs with that wiff of punk that made the first wave of Desert/Stoner hit so hard.
I have NO choice but to follow these dudes from Indonesia. The recording pisses me off so much I NEED to hear their follow-up. In all seriousness, please buy this thing from Bandcamp. I’m not sure streaming will cut it on this one. Whitehovse has an actual shot, maybe 1 in 1000, to make history and become absolutely great.
But guys- maybe don’t be so deliberately cute about it next time. You already stand out from the other 200+ releases this month. Let us hear the rest of the band- show off what ya got.
And for GAWDSAKES release that rhythm section from Lars’ purgatory. It hurts my heart, man!
