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Rating: Horse the Band: take a guitarist who is, so to speak, "all-core", and pair them with a great rhythm section, with colorful and never dull bass and drums. Now add to the trio a singer with an utterly improbable appearance, sporting a big mustache like James Hetfield and a noticeable beer belly: a sort of Drugo Lebowski with a desperate scream and lyrics that are both visionary and evocative. The winning weapon of HORSE, however, is an unusual keyboardist: long, dirty hair, perpetually nude at concerts, endowed with oversized incisors and above all with an 8-bit keyboard, like those in the early Japanese consoles: in the roaring battle of sounds and thrashes typical of metal-core, the small voice of this little organ takes the lead, softens the tones, and returns a certain originality to the genre.
Among catchy melodies à la Super Mario Bros and epic digressions, "A Natural Death" surprises and amazes: the speed of "Hyperborea", the first track with a grudge, the power of "Murder", and the brilliant insights on the offbeat rhythms of "The Starling Secret..." are a perfect opening for the excellent proposal of this band of crazy nostalgics from the Nintendo era.
More serious episodes like "New York City" and "His Purple Majesty" alternate with more naive tracks like "Sex Raptor" and "Kangorooster Meadows" whose keyboards recall the lively crafty moves of '90s dance, proving that they certainly don't take themselves seriously.
The lyrics, personally curated by the singer Nathan Winneke, are very interesting: cynical, funny, and metaphorical. Nature is the main protagonist, creator, destroyer, and mother of every flaw:
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. Everyone who will ever live will die a natural death, and will soon after be forgotten for eternity. 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. You are nothing.
In all probability, "A Natural Death" will go unnoticed over time, slipping through the crowd of genre aficionados and non-experts. Certainly, shouting "miracle" would be an exaggeration: we are not talking about the Pink Floyd of the end of the century, they do not approach the magnificence of any sacred monster of the Rock 'n Roll temple. Yet, in an era of mediocre and sad imitators of others, where most successful artists merely rehash the brilliance of a few, Horse the Band shines with its own light: a lively glow and (albeit in its own small way) brilliant.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Murder (04:14)
The blood of this family mingles
With the clay in this stinking riverbed
I tie the boy down and tear his mother's gown
It's okay, she's already dead
I'll sell the boy and the horses
To the snake you cannot see
I cut open the white man
And take from his woman too
If it were up to me
All the white faces would bleed
And bleed, and bleed, and bleed
It's truth
Murder
It's murder
Murder
It's murder
Empty plains echo with empty screams
There's a wagon on the highland
A father and his girl- both are heading south
I tie the boy and the horses
Then use the skills of the wolf
I don't use a bullet
I get close enough I can use my knife
My knife
I cut open the white man
And take from his woman too
If it were up to me
All the white faces would bleed
Red's a better color
It's truth
Let the blood out
Let it flow
Cut the blood out
Let it flow
Kill the blood out
Let if flow
Like a river
Let it flow
Like a river
Let it flow
Like a river
Let if flow
Like a river
Into the sea
03 The Startling Secret of Super Sapphire (03:18)
In down between the unseen
secret room of wonder and despair
rusting and in disrepair
un-here and un-there
SUPER SAPPHIRE is smiling
He's trapped in a room with three dying moons
Pulsing bicep boom cracks wheels of worlds
his not-skin cold black
a deep blue space like waiting
Violet Lights Collide then shimmer in his hair and eyes
not wounds never bleed
the lights of whispered stars
HE'S A SHATTERING PERFECTION
COMPLETELY PAST DETECTION
his head is a comet's tail
and his face is made of hearts
SUPER SAPPHIRE IS SMILING
SUPER SAPPHIRE IS SMILING
...STILL SUPER SAPPHIRE IS SMILING
I am locked in his black hole gaze...
I eat moons
YET HE EATS DAYS!!!!
I am locked in his black hole gaze...
I eat moons
YET HE EATS DAYS!!!!
CRASHING SLAMMING BOOMING DOOMING
EATING WORLDS AND CONSUMING ME
QUONOM EYES NOW BLACK ALIVE
TEASING LEARNING BLIND
DE CAMP ING HIS SEC RET PRI SON ROOM
HE-- IS-- LOOSE-
I --WAS --A -FOOL
OH NO OH NO!
13 Kangarooster Meadows (01:23)
On a warm summer day you'll find him there, relaxing in the shadows
Tapping his toe, under a tree, down in Kangarooster Meadows
K-A-N-garooster
M-E-A-dows
On a warm summer day you'll find him there, relaxing in the shadows
Tapping his toe, under a tree, down in Kangarooster Meadows
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