Horse Lords – Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! (RVNG Int) – There’s something more organic about Horse Lords this time around, something that somehow flows in an easier manner, they have always flowed though, they have always been organic and right now they’re sounding rather like early Don Cabellero as they joust with each other. The band now based in Germany and originally from Baltimore, Maryland have always been good, we had high hopes for this one, they haven’t let us down and calling the album Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! is just so right. Once again the mostly instrumental sound is perfectly balanced, detailed and clever but never obtuse about it, it is a sound that invites you in, demand that, if you’re not going to dance you are at least going to nod your head, it does indeed feel incredibly human and actually, far more worldly than before (they have always been rather worldly).
“Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! aims to liberate the listener into a spiritual, ecstatic, and utopic dimension of sound” or so we’re told, I was always led to believe we’d go mindless in Utopia, we’re nowhere near that here although we might just be in danger of being trapped in their electrifying groove. Horse Lords are rather fascinating actually, this is music that draws you in, musician type wil lget all excited about the time they’re playing in, their musical language, their other rock, me? I’m just enjying the way they paint (great cover art as well).
Complex patterns, clever repeats, rhythmic skips, post rock that never hits the post, mathematical play that’s just different, they feels natural, that, as it always does with Horse Lords, feels just right. What more needs to be said? This feels like an important album…
THE ORGAN 