2013 was an uncharacteristically quiet year for Horseback. While leader Jenks Miller released a solo record and the band put out a three disc compilation of limited and unreleased material, that was about it. The result of that hiatus is Piedmont Apocrypha, an album that hits many of the touchstones Horseback has worked with before, but as an evolved, more nuanced album that is polished and more complex than what preceded it.
The most striking aspect of these five songs are how much they avoid the realm of heavy metal that Miller and crew has consistently dabbled in throughout the band's career.This is pretty clear from the cover artwork:instead of the usual monochromatic, stylized paintings that hint at the tropes of black metal, it instead is a folksy painting on a stark white background.The music follows this shift in aesthetics, mostly stripped down when compared to the southern demonic rock of Half Blood.
One thing that remains consistent though is Miller's expertise in conjuring the backwoods occult, a sense of evil lurking in the dense woods and a sinister undercurrent to stereotypical southern hospitality."Passing Through" is an excellent example of this:based upon a traditional sounding cyclic blues motif with a country twang, the snarling vocals and piercing feedback signify an evil barely being contained.The same feel comes through on "Milk and Honey," with the initial field recordings conveying bleak isolation as the gentle organ and guitar chime away, more mournful than malignant.
The title piece is no different in its ambience, with shimmering organ and twanging guitar slowly filling up space in the mix, becoming more oppressive as it goes on.It is a slow build with the instruments slowly layering in until reaching a full band sound in the latter half, the different layers erratically intersecting before coming together in a locked in folksy, country influenced piece of music.
The sprawling "Chanting Out the Low Shadow" closes the album with a full on band and also results in a succinct primer on the Horseback sound, as elements from the entire catalog show up.The lurching guitar progression eventually leads into Miller's demonic growl that is otherwise absent from Piedmont Apocrypha.Calming down, the vocals shift to plaintive nasal delivery that is reminiscent of an Appalachian David Tibet singing hymns of similar esoteric imagery.Meanwhile the piece continues this classically minimalistic structure, building layers that stretch out and expand dramatically over the cyclic base rhythm.It eventually reaches full on rock, with soaring keyboards and rapid-fire drums in a truly epic climax, before folding back into a coda that sounds like the band playing into a broken radio.
To me, the recent Horseback material has reminded me in some ways of REM's Fables of the Reconstruction, and I mean that as the highest compliment considering my love for that album.While sonically distinct from one another, both have that same southern folk influence tinged with a hint of darkness.REM's may have insinuated a sense of evil while Horseback lays it out bluntly, but I still get the same sense from both, but wrapped in the context of memorable, catchy music.Compared to Miller's recent work the country influence is even more pronounced, and while I must admit to missing the straight ahead rock throb of Half Blood, Piedmont Apocrypha is a more complex work that reveals more of its mythos in due time.
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