4 out of 5

Label: Rvng Intl.

Produced by: Various (recorded / engineered by); Owen Gardner (mixed by)

Culled from concerts across 2018 – 2023 and tracks from albums dating back by about ten years, if e’er there was a doubt that Horse Lords diamond cut precision math rock could be pulled off live… well: here. And though I don’t know if I had such doubt, as the group has a pretty roll-the-tape presentation style, it’s no less amazing how tight they keep things on stage, while allowing for the slight wiggle room – a pause to bring in the honrs; timing hinks with a long stretch of playing – that might just occur naturally, and maybe sounds like it goes against my statement that this stuff is played to a T, but it’s more that that ‘wiggle’ is, indeed, slight to the point where it gets immediately subsumed by a group that just knows how to vibe with one another, and pick up a dropped note or beat immediately.

I suppose gathering different years’ material together unfortunately highlights the somewhat unchanging nature in HL’s style – play long stretches of Don Cab American Don-era clean tapped guitar, build up to some more propulsive moments, fade away and come back to it again – you can pick apart where an earlier track like Macaw stretches into the horizon, versus more recent material is boiled down to just the riffs it needs… maybe sometimes to the point of such songs not having much of a conclusion: as HL albums are structured to be albums, the picking and choosing (and editing out of a lot of crowd response) results in a mix-tape vibe where tracks don’t really flow from one to the next. Countering that: the material is just so damn good, and there’s definitely at least consideration of sequencing – with the interstitial Intervention II included, and some balancing of kraut-like workouts with rockers.

The mixing and mastering for this is fantastic: there are no artifacts of this being live (or from different sets!), and all the tracks could’ve been recorded in the same studio session. While I ultimately prefer experiencing the songs in context, this is still a worthwhile listen: first to just give the band a bit more of a human face for those of us who will likely never experience them live, but also functioning as a review – maybe not a best of, but a quality compilation – that proves Horse Lords have always been amazing, and can present a song from one of their oldest releases next to their newest, and rock out with them equally.