HORSE LORDS
Demand To Be Taken To Heaven Alive! (RVNG Intl.)
Since assembling in Baltimore circa the early 2010s, experimental quartet Horse Lords have released six quote-unquote regular albums – Demand To Be Taken To Heaven Alive! being the sixth – and several other artefacts of substance, such as a 2025 album with avant-garde composer Arnold Dreyblatt. They pick apart conventional notions of the ‘guitar, bass, drums’ band setup so comprehensively that one almost feels crass describing them in those terms – it’s what you hear on this innovative, fluid, witty set, though, in cahoots with saxophonist Andrew Bernstein and vocalists Nina Guo and Evelyn Saylor, debuting in this hitherto instrumental combo.
With album and track titles proffering utopian and transcendental imagery, Horse Lords avoid the sort of musical modes you might associate with things of that nature (spacerock or spiritual jazz, say) but do succeed in sounding like they’ve beamed in from the future – one which uses its knowledge of part artforms to push things forward. Their Appalachian music influence, sometimes less than linearly expressed, is upfront on After The Last Sky, which rides a string band groove before Bernstein swoops in with a sumptuous sax section that sounds like he’s reimagining footwork rhythms for woodwind. Elsewhere, the members make keen use of the editing suite to reassemble their multifaceted arrangements into something yet more complex, closer to electronic music than rock as it’s generally defined.
words NOEL GARDNER
