by Jorge Castro (@densidad20.25)
Horse Lords are currently having their moment in the sun, and it couldn’t be more well-deserved. The Baltimore-hailing foursome have, what could be described - although hesitantly - as a paradoxical formula, hitting the sweet spot between challenging and welcoming with a deceptive simplicity to their sound that makes it accessible, yet, at the same time, rewards deep, active listening. They’re loose, but in the pocket; psychedelic, but very grounded; it’s not your dad’s prog-rock, but it’s also not your nephew’s math-rock. Horse Lords create music you can equally dance or stroke your chin to while listening to it.
Their evolution has been subtle in that, to the casual listener, there might not be apparent change in their sound from one album to the next, but this has to do more with the fact that the band is working on refining their microtonal, polyrhythmic explorations, rather than present us with meandering, aimless genre fluidity. Their latest album, Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! might be the band’s best case for their expanding sound, using a wide array of resources to add more depth and volume to their geometric approach to composition while avoiding convoluted maximalism or overproduction. There’s elegance in their newfound approach to composing and arranging, making use of voices, more prominent electronics, and accompanying reed and brass instruments.
Right from the beginning, Horse Lords set us into uncharted waters with “Eureka 378-B,” a track that would be considered an a cappella intro if it weren’t for the android-like timbre of the voices involved, those of high soprano Nina Guo and singer/composer Evelyn Saylor. After reciting an excerpt of the lyrics from Thomas Kelly’s “Heavenly Home,” the vocals fall into a rhythmic pattern later followed by the whole band before transitioning into the second track, “Brain of the Firm,” beautifully merging both the new and the acquainted sides of the band. Mention of the new additions to the Horse Lords’ aural roster would not be complete without paying praise to the work of clarinetist/composer Madison Greenstone and trombonist/composer Weston Olencki. The pair are present throughout most of the album, either interplaying with the guitars or in unison with them, making the serpentine licks feel like colorful anacondas, or simply droning with enough gravitas to add a sense of dread.
Greenstone’s bass clarinet and Olencki’s trombone are specially felt on the epic “A City Yet to Come,” the second longest track and the one that showcases all members and guests on one of the most distinctive songs on the album. We can hear Guo and Saylor’s voices coming in and out of the song, Horse Lords doing their thing to keep a tight rhythmic backdrop while Greenstone and Olencki contribute with different approaches to playing their instruments, both of which deserve their own review and featured article. The overall result could grant a flattering comparison to King Crimson’s jazziest and more chaotic moments, but it’d be quite unfair, as Horse Lords have been carving a unique path that could make them the point of reference for upcoming artists that equally enjoy Laddio Bolocko and György Ligeti.
Although the band has never shied away from the use of bleeps and bloops, DtBTtHA! makes this use more overt, creating a kaleidoscopic effect that enhances their already trance-inducing organic psychedelia. This culminates in a grand finale with the title track, where Horse Lords go all-out with a head-scratching/mind-massaging highly textured climax that showcases a possible future territory for the band to explore, one in which they synthesize flesh and bone with ones and zeroes, merging the meticulous looseness of their playing with the steady pulse of programmed sequences. Add Maryanne Amacher to the aforementioned Laddio Bolocko/Ligeti reference, and it might paint a clearer picture of the stakes at play.
This album is a great accomplishment for the band, proving themselves to be quite the explorers, taking something new on each of their travels, which is not only metaphorical. Horse Lords mentioned in an interview how the collaborations came to be, pointing to a novel sense of belonging within the experimental/contemporary scene in Berlin after most of the band, save for drummer Sam Haberman, recently moved there. All the elements used on DtBTtHA!, regardless of how cerebral, had the intention of achieving transcendence, and for those who decide to truly engage, the album will flow like unraveling sacred geometry. Imagine a colorful muqarnas structure that stacks, spirals, and stretches upwards across the celestial vault with every song. Horse Lords embarked on a wondrous journey in which settling for anything less than the intended goal is not an option, and, as in Thomas Kelly’s hymn, the goal was Heaven itself.