Arts and Entertainment
Best Instrumental Band
Horse Lords
Published: September 19, 2012
Don’t get us wrong: Horse Lords’ self-titled Ehse Records debut is good. Seriously good. But it’s in the live setting that this quartet— percussionist/saxophonist Andrew Bernstein, bassist Max Eilbacher, guitarist Owen Gardner, and drummer Sam Haberman—really demonstrates just how tightly focused it is. Horse Lords songs are lengthy, rhythmically complex excursions that lava-lamp morph and shift before the eyes. Haberman’s steady beat grows arms and legs as Bernstein comes in to provide counterpoint accents, and Eilbacher and Gardner follow along. And before you know it, the quartet congeals into a consistent head-pounding, with every member hitting the same beat for a measure or two before everybody seamlessly jettisons off in their own rhythmic directions, somehow never losing the song’s propulsive thrust.
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