| CD REVIEW The Horse Company |
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Band : The Horse Company Pop Music may not be our usual thing at Concrete Web, but every once in a while even we (Metal-of-all-kinds, Hard Rock, Hardcore, Punk, and what have you other guitar-oriented music freaks) come across something that just won’t be denied! Singer/ guitarists Arjen and Vincent Hilberdink, bassist Arjan Pronk, and drummer Jeroen Hobert issued their debut full-length (produced by Henk Jonkers, renowned from having played with such bands as Claw Boys Claw, Fatal Flowers, Hallo Venray, and Do-The-Undo plus having previously produced albums by Hallo Venray and zZz) in late April 2007. Although a private release not benefitting from the backing of an established label, the band managed to get quite some air-play on a variety of radio stations (mainly Dutch ones, but also Belgium’s national Studio Brussel), especially with the album’s first single “Own Sweet Time” (the song even made it to Dutch radio station VPRO’s “Song Of The Year” listings)! Media such as OOR, Volkskrant, Live XS and Platomania all gave the album a positive review, which resulted in the band being enabled to not only play all over the country on their own effort (and that in the more publically known venues), but also to grace the stages of such festivals as Zwarte Cross, Bevrijdingsfestival Overijssel (in the band’s hometown) and Dauwpop. December 2008 and March 2009 sees the band as part of the travelling Et Voila! circus including (among others) 3FM DJ Gerard Ekdom, Belgian cartoonist Gummbah, and Leon Verdonschot. Prior to that, during February, they travelled to Denton, Texas based studio Echo Lab, where they recorded their new album with Matt Pence and guest appearances from musicians ( of Centro-Matic, Polyphonic Spree, and Slobberdone (like American Music Club, Shearwater, Midlake, and South San Gabriel, bands which have recorded at Echo Lab). As a result, the band’s dual guitar pop is frequently enhanced by the addition of instruments normally strange to the line-up. Stuff like violin, cello, (xylophone) keyboards/ organ, piano, saxophone, horns. During the 5 tracks [being the more straight-forward album opener “Both Of Our Dreams Collide”, the ensuing (more Popppy) “Starting To Get Better”, plus “Cornershop” (with additional organ keyboard and horns), the melancholic “I Don’t Wanna Wake Up” (for which the band recorded a very nice video), and eventually the organ-laden “Antlers Locked”) which are somewhat more…if I might say “aggressive”…the dual guitars occasionally soar with an occasional echo. But foremost they are somewhat fuzzy and closer to Rock than to Pop! The calmer songs on the other hand, can be labeled “Better Guitar Pop” without a doubt, even if the guitar(s) are occasionally only acoustic! Vocals are very clean and nice too, with a melancholic undertone! With the calmer movie soundtrack-ish fade-out “Deerhunter” andthesomewhatmoreuplifting (also contains piano, violin) the album also contains two short “instrumentals (the latter has a short soft bout of “Na, na, na” vocals). And, euh…you know, in order for you to get some idea what this band is about these days (the rougher edges have been filed off a bit compared to the band’s self-titled album), you’d actually do better by surfing over to myspace.com/horsecompany, where you can listen not only to 5 full-length tracks off the album (remember one of ‘em is also available as a video), but also to an addional 4 off the debut. Stylistically, Olympus is said to be rather akin to the sounds of such internationally known acts as Band Of Horses, Fleet Foxes, Kings Of Leon, Midlake, Port O’Brien, and Wilco, and if any of these bands are featured in your record collection, a swift comparison with what the band posted on their MySpace page (or their own website thehorsecompany.nl) will certainly convince you of this Dutch band’s qualities! 89/100 Tony. |
