About
Baltimore quartet Horselords blew minds with their first two releases of repetitious polyrhythmic rock, but those now seem like they were priming ears for their powerful and hypnotic new album, Interventions. Using modified instruments and just intonation tuning, Andrew Bernstein (saxophone/percussion), Max Eilbacher (bass/electronics), Owen Gardner (guitar), and Sam Haberman (drums) have produced a bold instrumental rock suite. The guitars are sharp but never shrill, the saxophone strong but not skronk. There’s a hint of West African rhythms and a few detours into electronic noise, but mostly Horse Lords come off like the house band at a Terry Riley loft party. They’ve won rave reviews for their albums and especially their live performances, the two drummer lineup holding down a groove longer than most audience members can keep dancing. The great Mark E. Smith sang of his group The Fall, “Repetition in the music and we’re never gonna lose it,” but he could never have imagined how far Horse Lords would take that mantra.
