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By GREG MAKI
I think I listen to a relatively wide range of music. It’s mostly different kinds of rock and metal, but I also have a few country albums in my collection, as well as a fair number of film and television scores. But as is probably the case with everyone, there is a lot more music that I don’t listen to, and I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t “get” everything.
I have listened to A Natural Death, HORSE the band’s third full-length effort, three times. I don’t get it. I just don’t. I tried. But I don’t. I’ve even seen them live—twice. Sorry. Still don’t get it.
Let’s see what keyboardist Erik Engstrom has to say: “A Natural Death is about the futility and arrogance of creation and destruction, the overwhelming scale of space and time, and the brutal majesty of nature, the horror of birth and the beauty of death.”
Huh. Let me think about that for a minute …
Yeah, I’m gonna need a little more help. Erik?
“Hopefully this album will serve as a warning to the human race to stop taking itself so seriously, as we have seen the dire consequences of its actions in the future.”
OK, so their intentions are good. But that doesn’t make their music any less baffling to me. Their sound appears to have its roots in hardcore, but they’ve changed and added so much that trying to pin a label on it is futile. They remind me a little of Between the Buried and Me, though the heavy parts aren’t quite as heavy and the instrumental sections feature keyboards sampling Gameboy and 8-bit Nintendo games. And I don’t recall BTBAM ever delving into disco, as HORSE the band does on “Sex Raptor.”
New drummer Chris Prophet was a good find. Even more than Engstrom’s keyboards, his playing is the foundation of the band. He and his bandmates handle time changes and shifts between styles—hardcore, metal, jazz, disco and everything in between—with ease. It’s chaotic by design and never settles into a comfort zone. The only song I have been able to latch onto is “Crow Town,” a Western-like instrumental. I half-expected Clint Eastwood to start talking.
HORSE the band toured as part of the 2006 edition of Sounds of the Underground and has built a loyal cult following. Based on the live performances I have seen, I expect fans will be pleased with A Natural Death, which consists of 16 songs running 56 minutes. It’s just so far away from what I would normally listen to that I don’t think it would be fair for me to assign a numerical rating for this review. But whether you “get” them or not, you have to admit one thing: There is no one else like HORSE the band. |
