HORSE THE BAND GET “SHAPESHIFTED,” BOTH FIGURATIVELY AND LITERALLY
Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 11:00am by Vince NeilsteinHorse The Band are growing up. They’ve long since distanced themselves from the “nintendo-core” label of the past, and from what we’ve heard of their new album Desperate Living — the new song “Rape Escape” and now “Shapeshift” in the video below — it seems like this album is another big step forward for them. HtB still combine influences from all over the map and their music is still anything but straight ahead rock or metal, but they present it in a much more mature fashion than, say, Iwrestledabearonce (I know Axl thinks this band is the cat’s pajamas, but I’m not sold yet). From what I can tell of the new record so far, Horse the Band seem to be taking themselves a lot more seriously this time around, and it shows in the presentation and composition of their music.
Watch the new (and weird!) video for “Shapeshift” below. Tomorrow, we’re going to have the full exclusive stream for Desperate Living; get psyched.
-VN
Nope, they still suck.
I doubt I’ll ever be able to explain why I like this band. They are probably hands down my most guilty pleasure in heavy music. One thing is certain though. This is one of the ugliest fucking group of dudes ever to grace a music video. For that I applaud them.
I’ll second this.
I don’t feel guilty at all about loving this band. I don’t know why so many people DON’T like them. They play great music. And their live show is fucking great. You’ve also got to give them respect for self-financing a world tour, and playing in a lot of countries that rarely see any American metal bands. They finished their Earth Tour in NY and Nathan gave a full-on performance with a broken collarbone. These guys are the real deal.
Can’t wait for the stream tomorrow.
i’ll miss shit like “birdo”.
right? even so, compared to their newer song “Rape Escape,” this is trash.
The Mechanical Hand and A Natural Death sound so much better than this.
This isn’t Nintendo-core?
Still love them. I have no idea why.
They’re still mehf. And IWABO still sucks donkey ass while gently folding the scrotum of a platypus.
Horse the band isn’t to bad don’t listen to em a lot i like their more energetic songs like Cutsman, Purple, Birdo and a couple others. This song isn’t too bad.
IWABO is a disgrace to every type of music and i wish them to die choking on a donkey’s ass while fondling the scrotum of a platypus.
Pretty much all of R. Borlax is amazing. This newer direction isn’t bad though, I’m into it. I do miss songs about squishing fucking bunnies though.
The album is GREAT! Having listened to it a few times now, they have indeed grown up, now if only they would tour in a less sporadic fashion…
Nintendo-core…WTF is up with these stupid fucking sub-genre names that are not even technically a “genre”. That’s not as bad as “crab-core” but seriously. Very seldom is this music different enough from it’s source materiel to merit creating a brand new sub-genre. We are just left with a million different rediculus names that mean next to nothing and make rock in general look stupid to the rest of the world.
Nintendo-core
Sumerian-core
Crab-core
GET THE FUCK OUT!
there are a whole legion of bands that play metalcoreish stuff with 8-bit sounding synths. how is that not worthy of an (admittedly silly) sub-genre tag?
i could tell people “oh its one of those bands that plays metalcore with 8 bit synths” but that takes many more words and reducing their efforts into a buzzword makes it a lot easier to make fun of them and thus gets reactions out of people who get butthurt over genre tags.
Calling HtB a metalcore band with 8 bit synths is like calling Moby Dick a book.
Please get an education. If you want, I’ll tutor you. But for fuck sake the words are MATERIAL and RIDICULOUS.
dig it. singer reminds me of the guitar player from ETID.
I hope Andy Williams jumps through your internets and farts in your mouth for that.
hey, he’s the one who chose to grow a handlebar moustache.
heh they both have ironic facial hair I BETTER POST ABOUT IT
Hey, I feel you, man. Personally I am much more comfortable seeing comically masculine, anthropomorphic toes wearing facial pubics.
the bees knees
Hold on I’m a bit confused, were’nt these type of threads named shit-stains on the ass of the universe??
i didn’t think they were the worst thing i’ve ever heard until the breakdown and decidedly nintendo-core interlude, but yeah, fuck this shit. plus ironic moustaches are so 2007.
the problem with these bands is they cant write SONGS.
oh christ ANOTHER breakdown followed by ANOTHER nintendo interlude? sorry guys im gonna go listen to some gorod to wash this shit out of my ears
Gorod? Oh christ ANOTHER European band with wanky guitar riffs and cookie monster vocals.
Desperate Living doesn’t surpass The Mechanical Hand for me, but it’s a good album, and there are some great moments. By all intents and purposes, I should hate these guys, and yet, their weirdness won me over long ago. I can’t explain it.
Band rules. Video rules. Most of these people above…eh.
latfh, I still like horse the band too much though
and their singer as the moustaches of all moustaches
band rules weak song iwabo and htb need to tour
This shit is awesome.
How would we live our lives without HORSE the band?
I frequently ask myself that question. If I got a quarter for every time I listened to R. Borlax I’d be driving my Ferrari instead of typing this.
If they’re taking themselves seriously, I’m going to seriously question whether I’ll like this or not
I have rarely enjoyed any songs by this band in the past, but their new album is excellent. I am actually delighted that they’ve made an album I genuinely love. It was the adorable cover art what angled me in.
I agree, they shoehorned me in with the last track on here and this is sweet too. Looking forward, rather than back with these guys. Previous material isn’t quite the cats pj’s.
This song and album are PHENOMENAL this band just keeps getting better and better no one will stop Horse the Band!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I agree with the Duck that album art is precious :)