Sometimes you can tell just how good a band is by how ugly they are. Just one look at the album cover for “Desperate Living” and you know it’s going to be awesome cause these motherfuckers are downright homely looking. My first encounter with this band was seeing them open for Between the Buried and Me two Halloween’s ago in Manhattan. I’ve seen some bands whip their crowds up into a frenzy before but this was something else. The kids that night were going insane and the band responded in turn. As good as BTBAM were HORSE gave them a run for their fucking money. It was Hardcore but they had a keyboardist playing this bizarre-ass 8-bit Nintendo noise along with everything else. At first I wasn’t sure though, I half expected someone to come on stage after the first song and say “We’re sorry but your princess is in another castle”. But when they played Cutsman and I saw a kid dressed up as Cut Man (a character from Mega Man) lose his mind I knew I was gonna go out and buy all their albums. When I saw their new album “Desperate Living” on the shelf last week I picked it up no questions asked.
HORSE the band hasn’t changed their sound much since I saw them two years ago… Hardcore + screaming + 8-bit noise + oddness (they actually credit Erik Engstrom as “Keyboards and Game Boy” in the liner notes), but it’s their sound and there’s something refreshing about hearing the music from Super Mario Bros. where time is running out injected into a Hardcore song so who am I to argue. Lyrically though their references to Nintendo are a Spy Hunter-esque smoke screen to well hidden themes that aren’t readily apparent. Vocalist Nathan Winneke has described his lyrics as “Lynchian” (David that is) in that they’re rarely about what they seem and usually difficult to pick apart unless you have an intimate knowledge of Winneke’s life. Sifting through the liner notes of “Desperate Living” I’m still unsure. Although HORSE the song’s line of “living at the top when you’re at the fucking bottom” was deemed important enough by the band to have put at the bottom of a photo of a naked man hanging over a hotel door surprising an underpants-clad sleep-deprived looking Winneke.
If like me you grew up playing a ton of Nintendo and going to Hardcore shows “Desperate Living” is a gaming nerd turned hardcore kid’s wet dream. I’d like to think that non-gamers can get down with their sound too. It’s nice to see that they’re on Vagrant now as it’ll surely help them reach a wider audience. So, if you’ve beaten the Legend of Zelda, fought through the 3 original Super Mario Bros., know the code for infinite lives in Contra, and have been to your fair share of Hardcore Matinees check this album out. And definitely check these guys out live if you have the chance, Cut Man costume not required but I don’t think anyone will mind either.
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