Out now via Iodine Recordings, A Malign Star is the first new album from Boston’s Bloodhorse since 2009’s Horizoner. The trio—Alex Garcia-Rivera (drums), Matt Woods (bass, vocals), and Adam Wentworth (guitar, backing vocals)—shares DNA with bands like American Nightmare, The Red Chord, All Pigs Must Die, and Cable. Their sophomore full-length, recorded at Mystic Valley Studios with Garcia-Rivera handling production, delivers a direct hit of post-metal, doom, and sludge, laced with bursts of speed, slow-drip anxiety, and raw physicality.
Coming like a time capsule cracked open, rewired, and blasted through a wall of amps, the six tracks are rooted in memory, mistakes, and a kind of creeping, historical dread. “The title is cribbed from a quote from Robespierre describing Paris as being held under a malign star,” the band notes about the title track. “The idea for this song was to capture a sense of majestic, imperial foreboding.”
Much of the record walks that same tightrope—between collapse and control, between something deeply personal and something bigger looming overhead. “It’s a reckoning,” they say, and that weight runs through the whole album.
View this post on Instagram
A full track-by-track commentary from the band unpacks the process behind each piece, starting with “The Somnambulist,” a re-recording of a 2006 demo track. The song’s dream-state effect comes from an old tape trick: vocals were reversed, reverb was added, and the result was laid back onto two tracks—so that the voice swooshes in rather than fading out. “We tried this on the demo by having Matt sing with his head inside an empty clothes dryer,” Garcia-Rivera recalls. It didn’t quite work, but it stuck around anyway.
That kind of DIY weirdness threads through the record. “Saboteur” opens with the return of a 40-inch wind gong the band imported from Wuhan, inspired by a conversation about Keith Moon. The song itself, a nod to Black Sabbath’s Sabotage, captures what they call Matt Woods’ most melodic and memorable vocal performance. “All the while, playing bass as well,” Garcia-Rivera adds. “My favorite part has no vocals—it’s around 2:45, where some extra guitars kick in and we just rock out for a bit. It’s like an anti-guitar solo.”
“House of Burden” came together from a riff that felt “a bit fast for a Bloodhorse song,” but instead became their fastest to date. The band describes it as “early Metallica kind of thing” that shifts into something like “a heavy House of the Rising Sun.” Vocals are minimal. “We often let the music do the talking,” they say.
There’s a dry humor to their self-assessment, especially in more complex arrangements like “Shallowness.” “This one is pretty ‘prog-y’ for us,” Garcia-Rivera admits. “I say this as a drummer, though… All I know is I can’t do what they do and it sounds complicated as hell.” He also details a favorite beat where one hand hits the ride cymbal bell while the other bangs toms—dubbed the “Whack-A-Mole” beat. “I use my left hand on various toms around the kit instead of a left kick drum.”
“Shallowness” also hides subtle production touches, like an “underwater” vocal effect that only appears in the bridge, audible mainly through headphones. The band recorded everything to tape, and Garcia-Rivera had to trigger takes manually with a foot pedal. “This song took the most tries to get right.”
“Illumination” is instrumental, originally presented as a set of bass riffs. The band later added leads, with Wentworth returning weeks after tracking to record final solos. “The first time Matt and I heard this opening solo was in the studio as a finished piece of work,” Garcia-Rivera says. They compare it to Metallica’s “Orion,” not in sound but in shared vibe.
The title track, “A Malign Star,” was among the last written. Its fadeout was deliberate. “You’ll never know how it really ends, lol,” Garcia-Rivera shrugs. There’s a subtle confidence throughout their commentary—self-aware, no need to oversell. What they made, they stand by. And they’re taking it on tour.
This is not a record built on spectacle or reunion hype. It’s a continuation of a very specific voice, forged in the shared instincts of three players who never stopped listening to each other—even when they hadn’t released anything for fifteen years. “We let the music do the talking,” they said. And that’s exactly what it does.
See the full track by track commentary below.
THE SOMNAMBULIST:
This is a re-recording of a song from our 2006 “Black Lung Rising” demo. The demo was literally my very first time trying my hand at recording, and consequently, it sounds like garbage. Nearly two decades of recording experience has really improved the song, lol, and it finally got the production it deserves. The backwards, swooshing vocal effect was made by flipping the tape around, adding reverb to the vocals, and recording that reverb back onto two tracks on the tape.
When you flip the tape back around to normal, you get this effect where the vocals seem to swoosh towards you, rather than fade away from you, like with regular reverb. I remember trying to do this on the demo by having Matt sing with his head inside an empty clothes dryer and it didn’t quite work like we wanted, although it was cool enough to leave it that way. Interestingly, we had been misspelling (and mispronouncing?) the title of this song for it’s entire existence until Casey at Iodine noticed we left out the first “m” in the title. Not a common word, it means: someone who sleepwalks, and we really tried to capture a sleepy, dream-like feel on the recording, like you’re sleepwalking.
If you listen carefully, you can hear gong hits throughout the song, made with a 40″ wind-gong. The story behind the gong is that we were talking about Keith Moon, and did he have two gongs that said “THE” and “WHO”, or just one gong that said “WHO”, and it planted a seed in my head. Next thing you know, I’m down at a wharf at Boston Seaport, picking up my custom ordered GIANT wind-gong from Wuhan, China. I had it LITERALLY shipped to me and they dropped it at my feet, strapped to a pallet, with the name MR. ALEX printed on the tag!
SABOTEUR:
The gong makes it’s appearance once more during the guitar intro to this song. What follows next is perhaps our most catchy of songs, the title of which is a tip of the hat to Black Sabbath’s “Sabotage” album. This is what happens when “working titles” become the actual song names, haha. Our bass player, Matt Woods, wasn’t a singer before doing this band, and it has been a real pleasure to watch him blossom in this role.
This song, to me, might be the best showcase of his style, with perhaps his most melodic and memorable work…all the while, playing bass as well. My favorite part, however, has no vocals; it’s around 2:45 where some extra guitars kick in and we just rock out for a bit. It’s like an anti-guitar solo…it gets more simple, and more heavy. There actually IS a pretty sick guitar solo in the song though, but it’s more of an endtro type of thing.
HOUSE OF BURDEN:
When Matt came up with this riff, we thought it was a bit fast for a Bloodhorse song, but then decided this would be “as fast as it gets”, which was the working title of this one. To me it’s kind of an early Metallica kind of thing, but then the arpeggiated guitar on the second half of the song is like a heavy “House Of The Rising Sun”.
Maybe we should have called the song House Of (Cliff) Burton! Not a lot of vocals on this song, as we tend to do; we often let the music do the talking, and this ripper has a lot to say, as the riffs get pretty shreddy at times. The guitar solo section has us doing our bastardized “The Who” type of thing where all three of us are essentially soloing at the same time.
SHALLOWNESS:
This one is pretty “prog-y” for us, not that it has weird time signatures, but there is a lot of complexity in the bass and guitar work. I say this as a drummer, though, and it’s easy to impress me…All I know is that I can’t do what they do and it sounds complicated as hell! I have always felt lucky to get to put beats to these guys’ riffs, and this song has one of my favorite drum beats, where I am hitting the bell of the ride cymbal with one hand, and banging on the toms with the other hand during the second half of the instrumental chorus. We call this the “Whack-A-Mole” beat that I use when I want a double-kick beat, but I use my left hand on various toms around the kit instead of a left kick drum.
The intro of the song is another bastardized version of our influences, in this case, Pink Floyd (in theory, more than actual). At one point, we took to jamming on bass riffs, with minimalist guitar and cymbal work, after watching Live At Pompeii more than a few times. One of these days, you might hear what I’m talking about. In the “bridge” section, you can hear an “underwater” sound on the vocals creep in towards the end, but you might need headphones or a good sound system to hear it.
We record to tape, with no editing, so I had to play this song (and all the songs on this release) from start to finish without making any mistakes. In the studio, I had a remote control sitting on the floor next to me, so that I could press record every time we did a take, and I think this song took the most tries to get right.
ILLUMINATION:
This is an instrumental song that was presented to Adam and I as bass riffs. Again, I’ll bring up Metallica…we couldn’t help but think of “Orion” after we were done with it, not necessarily because it sounds like that, but they are both heavy instrumentals that share some kind of vibe for sure. One of the cool things about this song is that we didn’t have any of the guitar leads written until after the basic tracking was done.
Our guitarist, Adam Wentworth, spent a few weeks coming up with solos and lead lines for all of the songs before coming back to the studio to record them, so the first time Matt and I heard this opening solo was in the studio as a finished piece of work! There are a lot of different parts and movements to this song, which make it fun to play, and kind of takes you on a journey as a listener, but it takes you back home again with a heavier version of the intro at the end.
A MALIGN STAR:
This was one of the last songs written for the album, from years ago when we were having regular band practices. The guitar solo at 1:58 is one of my favorite guitar solos on the album. It’s not even that long or complex, but it has just the right vibe for the song.
Underneath it, I get to do one of my favorite drum fills at 2:13; again, not a complex one, but I was stoked when I came up with it. There was a discussion about whether or not to have it fade out or not, and obviously we chose the fadeout. You’ll never know how it really ends, lol.
