4 out of 5

Label: Tortuga

Producer: Craig Riggs, Scissorfight?

I’m not sure what the pitch for ACHB was, a limited UK release that re-recorded some old track, a couple not so old tracks, and then – I think – just included the tracks from the then-upcoming Deathchants EP, same recording session?  Whatever the concept was, the recording is a total gift for fans.  Scissorfight’s indie(r) albums are obviously what got the ball rolling for their following amongst the acid-country-rock-metal-fuck crowd, but they are pretty rough and raw to listen to, and Ironlung’s singing style was a ton more growly, which fit at the time but lacks the character of his current snarl.  So those recordings have tons of charm, but the band has for sure grown much more comfortable and confident with their sound.  Hearing some of these tracks re-recorded for American Cloven Hoof is awesome – they’re sped up, they’re played with speaker-breaking gusto, and it’s like they bumped everything in the mix up a couple degrees for this collection – the new cuts sound like they were recorded live, so there’s a very buzzy energy to them that gets smoothed away a bit on album (if you can imagine) – so not only do we get old classics reinvigorated, the album kicks off with just a harsh, unrelenting sound that doesn’t let up the whole way through.

Which is where we can dock a star.  Any compilation suffers a bit from feeling like the tracks aren’t necessarily supposed to be presented in the way we’re getting them, and ACHF is just a little bit too much, as each Scissorfight album gives us a couple of more rolling jams or catchier rockers to let the blood in our ears dry a little bit, and every track on here is tuned to 11, so you are goddamn exhausted by the time you get to the last track.

One curiosity is the re-recorded “New Hampshire,” from “Mantrapping,” which has some different lyrics and is a little more reverb-y and moodier, adding to the feeling that this was just recorded live in studio, no trickery.  If this is your first hearing the track, it’ll sound just as fuck-off as the others, but the differences between it and the album version are interesting (some minor sonic tweaks).

Anyhow, a total joy for fans, but it’s like going to a live show, so you’ll probably need to sit down after queueing it up.  New listeners might be better off getting one of their similarly excellent but more cohesive, when taken as a whole, albums.