Metal Messiahs #6: Blackhorse – Blackhorse

METAL MESSIAHS #6: BLACKHORSE – BLACKHORSE (1979, Georgia, USA)
Buzz Drainpipe, The Discarded I
“This is outlaw proto-doom dipped in diesel and baptized in swampwater. You don’t listen to Blackhorse. You survive it.”

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By the time Blackhorse dropped their lone, self-titled LP in 1979, the New South was still choking on tear gas, burnout, and the psychic shrapnel of the Vietnam War. Disco was in cocaine bloom. Rock was getting silkier by the second. And then—from some murky backroad bar in Georgia—came Blackhorse, a band so heavy and so cursed they sounded like they’d fought their amplifiers before recording with them.

Forget record deals. Forget radio play.
Blackhorse was released independently, barely advertised, and seemingly whispered into existence.
And it. Is. Perfect.

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🛠️ The Sound:

Take the blown-out biker fuzz of early Grand Funk, the menace of Sabbath, and the chaos of a bar fight during a tornado. Songs like “Fox Huntin’” and “Born to Rock” don’t just rock—they rattle chains in hell.

The riffs are molasses-thick and rusted out, like they’ve been fermenting in a junkyard oil drum. Vocals? Somewhere between a Southern preacher mid-sermon and a wounded dog with a grudge.

And the rhythm section doesn’t just keep time—it marches toward judgment day. Listen to “Junkie”—it’s a biker dirge, a Vietnam ghost story, and a proto-sludge odyssey all at once.

🗣️ Buzz notes in the margins: “You can hear the meth in the mix.”

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🐴 The Myth:

No major label. No tour. No second chance. The band members? Shadows.
Blackhorse appeared, kicked in the speakers, and vanished like a ghost regiment.

Their only album? Privately pressed, cover art a photocopied skull with a horse head, distribution limited to gas stations, head shops, and that one cousin who used to roadie for Molly Hatchet. For decades, it was considered lost media until collectors started passing the LP around like some biker Rosetta Stone.

This is the kind of record that ruins families and heals bones.

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☠️ Why It’s Metal Messiah #6:

Because Blackhorse wasn’t trying to “make it.” They were trying to survive the night.

Because it’s an honest-to-God, post-Vietnam scream from the American underworld, untouched by marketing, ego, or irony.

Because it proves the realest metal doesn’t rise—it haunts.

And because when Buzz Drainpipe found an original LP at a flea market outside Tuscaloosa, the old man behind the table just said, “Be careful with that one, son.”

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