by Sarah Samson
Formed in 2010, Baltimore-based quartet Horse Lords, an experimental, avant-garde band comprising Andrew Bernstein, Max Eilbacher, Owen Gardner, and Sam Haberman, have made a name for themselves as being dynamic musicians who've used their assorted and scattered influences to create exciting music. They released their sixth album, and their first live album, As It Happened: Horse Lords Live via RVNG Intl. during the spring of 2024. The record has songs from many different points of their discography, primarily from Interventions (2016) and Comradely Objects (2022) and one track from Hidden Cities (2014). As It Happened has added another layer to their recorded tracks from the past decade and how they've shaped them in the time since.
Though some songs stay true to their original state, Horse Lords have given these songs a new life with different arrangements. Songs like “Zero Degree Machine” stay true to their record version, revealing their musicians keen ability to stay consistent live. The songs play with different time signatures and rhythms, and it's impressive that they can pull it off live and make it sound just as good as the recorded version. As a testament to Horse Lord's incredible musicianship, they use their recorded songs as a starting point for their live songs and bring them to a new life. Songs like “May Brigade” showcase how imaginative the band can be in improvising and bringing new versions of old ideas on the spot. Though both songs follow each other for the first bit, the live recording takes a journey of its own while still having elements of the recorded version hinted at throughout.