Might be the relative isolation from the coasts or their long running tradition of rugged individualism, but for whatever reason, Texas has a long tradition of producing wonderfully quirky punk/metal bands, with some of my favorite Texans including the likes of Butthole Surfers, Watchtower, Stick Men with Rayguns and Absu. Another bands that came out with their own uniquely Texas-flavored sound was Houston's Dead Horse, a group that had roots in both speed metal and hardcore punk but who laced their crossover thrash with bits of weird regional humor, country music, and odd song structures. Several of their releases were reissued on Relapse back in the late 90s, but for the longest time their final release Boil(ing) has been out of print; although not as important as their cult classic debut, it's still of interest to anyone into the band's legacy and to fans of quirky thrash metal.

First released in 1996, Boil(ing) saw the band moving away from the idiosyncratic crossover thrash heard on their debut Horsecore: An Unrelated Story That's Time Consuming into a groovier kind of alternative metal. It's still plenty bent though, with the band's trademark gruff, strained vocals, the wrecked, bluesy guitar figures and shifts into raging thrash; for this 12", though, the band started to incorporate a percussive, crunchy groove that gives me the feeling that the Dead Horse guys might have been listening to a lot of Beg To Differ-era Prong and early 90s Voivod while they were baking in the hot Texas sun under the influence of cheap blotter acid. "One Nation"'s chugging. stop/start thrash groove begins the record, a chunky blast of crossover laced with pummeling breakdowns and some of those wiry countrified licks, while "What a Beautiful Day" offers up some pessimistic alt-metal churn, and the richly dissonant thrash freakout "Reach Around" collides it's borderline blastbeat drumming with grinding sludginess. The other songs inject weird funk-guitar chords and quirky riffing, and some of these tracks unfold in unpredictable ways, suddenly branching off into a slow doom- laden dirge or weird angular industro-metal assault, culminating in the bizarre psychedelic death/thrash meltdown and whacked-out sound-collage fuckery of "Someone" at end.

As Boil(ing) was basically an Ep, this reissue includes the same tracks on both sides of the record. Pressed on colored vinyl and released in a limited edition of one thousand copies, the record also includes a download code, an 18" x 24" poster, and a vinyl sticker.