HORSE GOD ~ GIRAFFATRON ... review

 Those of you out there with a love of fuzzy stoner/hard rock but who also have a soft spot some heavy prog-metal complexity are in for a real treat when you wrap an ear around Horse God's debut album "Giraffatron", not only do you get all the crunch and fuzz you could possibly ask for you also get complex chord progressions, intricate and heavy rhythmic patterns as well as unique powerful vocals of a quality and tone you may be unused to hearing in this type of musical setting.

Horse God, Stove Knapp (vocals, bass, synth); Jason Fuerst  (guitars) and Brad Bauman (drums), have a sound that is in parts familiar and in parts totally different from what you may expect, they have all the heavy riffs and thunderous rhythms we expect to hear from a bands operating in and around the underground rock scene but then they also have this prog element going on. It is this prog element that sets Horse God apart from their contemporaries, it is an element unlike any you will find on albums by big prog-metal hitters like Dream Theater and Mastodon, instead you would need to check out bands like Poland's Riverside and Britain's Amplifier before trying to make comparisons and even then you won't come close because there is of course those stoner/heavy rock elements to take into consideration. So we have discussed the music now lets focus on the vocals and here too we find Horse God swimming against the tide, instead of the soaring power of a James LaBrie (Dream Theater) or the low guttural growl of an early Mikael Akerdfelt (Opeth) Horse God's Knapp opts for a tone and delivery that sits somewhere between a post-punk howl and a semi-gothic croon with occasional forays into falsetto yodelling, just as impactful and powerful as those two gentlemen mentioned earlier but a touch quirkier and different. We won't go into a full track by track analysis here, much better that you witness these songs in your own time, we will however point out a few songs we feel best represent this bands overall sound such as the excellently quirky "Wings of the Sea", the spinning Cult-like "Thundersnow" and the doom flecked "The Battle", though in truth you will not find a track on this album you won't like. 

There are plenty of bands out there who have made a name for themselves by blending heavy rock and metal with prog but not many who can claim to sound anything quite like Horse God, prog-metal has of late started to get a little stale and predictable but these guys, by adding elements from a wide source of unexpected musical sources, have made it interesting again

Check 'em out ....

© 2024 Frazer Jones