Highly recommended. The Horse Lords are beyond mere rock music, reaching into the void to create a complex tapestry that pushes their art into the future. Finally, with their 5th record they achieve that rare thing they have been striving for, a near perfect record that explores each avenue of their sound. "Zero Degree Machine" starts the album off, introducing layer open layer of different rhythms deployed at the same time, something like King Crimson early 80's era on acid. "Mess Mend" somehow turns this into an accessible sound, sort of like a video game from the inside out, but with an accessible guitar line running through. "May Brigade" brings out the Henry Cow noises, the full-on nonsense, but it still anchors it to a rhythm so that the chaos is kept in check. "Solidary Ave" could actually be longer, by far the shortest track on the album but earning points for its earthy, Jon Hassell type atmosphere, like a mole slowly crawling through the ground to find its home. The final two tracks, ten minute "Law of Movement" and the brief afterlife "Rounder" are the quintessence of what makes the album great, getting lost in the shuffle with a pulsating drone anchoring the music, so that the rhythm is lose and the animals can run free.Not sure what most people will think of Horse Lords, but as a fan for quite some time I can tell you this is their best record, and one of '22 finest. Its music made by people with not a lot of financial aspirations, made because this is music that SHOULD be made and may one day be like what everything sounds like. Just think of it as a new form of Remain in Light by Talking heads, except it is all instrumental, turned full on digital, their ultimate imagining of their take on totalism.
