Fucked & Bound x Haunted Horses Split

I ran into Fucked & Bound (a porn title that has it all backwards if there ever was one) last year with their debut full-length, Suffrage. A hardcore punk album with very slight grindcore influences it was, full of energetic punk riffs and classic drum beats that you hear so often on these types of releases. A year later and they are back, and they stand next to Haunted Horses, a band with a vastly different approach to music; they are the more artsy, genre bending sort with many different influences under their belt.

So what happens when you combine these two, seemingly disparate bands for a split EP, two shots each? Do you get gravy or do you get the type of mashed potatoes that’s not quite mashed?

Short answer: you get a weird 8 minutes.

For their part, Fucked & Bound offer a much lighter, much more lighthearted rendition of surf punk (if that’s a thing) with Kool Thing and marry it to a 90’s rock tint with Private Room. The former has some energy but the latter is positively lethargic, just trudging along.

For their part, Haunted Horses deliver Pig and Milk the Sleaze. Both are interesting, noise and electronics driven numbers that are more noise and drums than anything else. As such, their structureless, aimless, meandering offerings leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

I guess the issue with this split is not just how unremarkable it is, but how disjointed it is. Fucked & Bound’s unexpected genre shift does not compliment them at all, and Haunted Horses’ noisome, interlude-ish tracks leave much to be desired – both devoid of any driving force or capable of holding interest. When combined, the culmination of four tracks is basically much ado about nothing of the bad sort: the kind that takes about 8 minutes but seems like it takes hours and is ultimately badly pointless. Not recommended.

Fucked & Bound Line-up:
Lisa Mungo – Vocals
Brian McClelland – Guitar
Matt Chandler – Drums
Rah Davis – Bass

Haunted Horses Line-Up:
Colin Dawson
Myke Pelly

01. Fucked&Bound – Kool Thing
02. Fucked&Bound – Private Room
03. Haunted Horses – Pig
04. Haunted Horses – Milk the Sleazer

Fucked&Bound on Facebook
Fucked&Bound on Bandcamp

Haunted Horses Official site
Haunted Horses on Facebook