Review : HORSE THE BAND – “Desperate Living”

Horse The Band – Desperate Living
released October 7, 2009 on Vagrant Records

HTB can only exist right now. The music world at large needed to be far enough removed from the 1980s to appreciate the retro irony of their sound, and hardcore needed to exist for long enough that a desire for the two worlds integrating would be present. The ‘retro’ comes by way of keyboard sounds, mostly harvested from 8-bit game systems like the NES.

They start strong with appreciable dynamism; time shifts, musical interplay, and choice of samples all make sense. But it loses focus midway, and did not recapture my attention until 11 (a veritable tour-de-force in its own right, complete with classical piano solo from Valentina Lisitsa). Their biggest drawback is the apparent desire for epic proportions by way of the keyboard, but they barely approach the inspired chaos of, say, Genghis Tron. As often expected, the vocals leave much to be desired. Anyone can do the standard bark and spoken word, but singing showcases one’s limitations (witness 12).

If you wanna hear video game music done right, try Minibosses; if you wanna hear seemingly incongruous keyboards seamlessly integrated into clever heavy music, try Faith No More; if you wanna hear hardcore with a partially realized novelty, look no further.

FCC: 3, 4, 10
Try 1, 2, 6, 11

01. Cloudwalker
02. Desperate Living
03. The Failure Of All Things
04. HORSE the song
05. Science Police
06. Shapeshift
07. Between The Trees
08. Golden Mummy Golden Bird
09. Lord Gold Wand of Unyielding
10. Big Business
11. Rape Escape
12. Arrive

Rating: