3 out of 5

Label: Northern Spy

Produced by: Chris Freeland (recorded by)

For any group that’s going to toss around terms like ‘polyrhythm’ and ‘microtonal,’ and fit into a math rock square-circle while toting a band member on sax… there’s inevitably going to be some flirtation with “art for art’s sake” in the music, though expressed as equations and specific tributes to musical movements or outre composers. In less words: Horse Lords, for as awesome as their music can be, are often in conversation with themselves.

So while they found their voice over initial releases as art-punks funneled through Don Cab instrumental post-rock, the call of cut-and-paste came for them, and four mixtapes of musings and electronic manipulations were made. Interventions – interestingly named – is the album output of this between-era of experimentation, which I could see as either one’s favorite HL album or the off one, depending on where you entered the journey. The rating suggests the latter for me: but I think everything about the release leans towards it purposefully being “off,” it being the only full / official release thus far with some called-out interstitial moments – eponymous Interventions, alongside Encounters – and the eye-blasting pink of the cover artwork a clear standout amongst the band’s generally starker design scheme.

My nod to the apt naming of the disc is due to the way it could be seen as an “intervention” upon going to far, musically, in its direction: while there are some standout singles that map to both the looser interplay of the preceding albums (Bending to the Lash) and the forthcoming precise-as-fuck funk math (opener Truthers), even these tunes have frayed edges that prevent Interventions from syncing together, end-to-end: tracks end abruptly, or trickle off without much fanfare (as on Toward the Omega Point), with the interstitials seemingly constructed to not build up to the next track, but instead keep daisy-chaining the listener to climaxes that never really arrive.

All of that is, for sure, a legit approach for a band, and one that I’m positive Horse Lords could make the most of if pursued in full; they will hit on such experimentation again, but I think they’ve mostly come to appreciate keeping a sense of ebb and flow in their music – maintaining some substance to the artsy style – and used Interventions as a stopover to see how it felt to go in a more outright anti-rock direction. Worthwhile, surely interesting, but dang do I like hearing the band rock on occasion.