Prancing like studious steeds, Caligula‘s Horse has drifted down a lane of increasing pleasantness from their rockier roots, each adventure whittling away the screeching, squealing, and shredding tones of their guitar love—the trap of adopting the impact of modern chuggery. However, in that further compressed thump and groove, Caligula’s Horse has managed both to break a Karnivool-ish catchiness into their alt-ered state (Bloom, 2015) and whip it further with heart-fluttering fantasy (In Contact,1 2017). In some ways, then, 2020’s Rise Radiant felt like a misstep, with the band refocusing again on finding a wider-reaching prog rock hypnotism, growing soaring choruses from choppier, bass-heavy patterns like you’d hear on a later-era Soen outing or mid-period Haken piece. And in those same ways Charcoal Grace finds a head-bobbing jangle (“The World Breathes Without Me,” “Golem”) and swelling, stadium-sized chorus (“The Stormchaser”). But, reaching a step back to In Contact, Caligula’s Horse decided that Charcoal Grace must also tell a patchwork tale of loss and longing.
“I just wish that you would answer, just once” vocalist Jim Grey drips in a cool-kicking, musical theater fashion, twenty-four minutes into Charcoal Grace during “A World Without”—that’s a long time to wait for the first real lacrimal tickle. Grey spends a good chunk at the front with his gruff croon cut through radio filters (“The World Breathes…”) or pushing a Maynard James Keenan-certified aggressive whisper rap (“Golem,” “Prey”), which reduces the human pull that he’s so capable of finding. With a four-part suite sandwiched in between two ten-minute plus bookends and a handful of thematically related songs, the written and vocal narrative should drop easier story nuggets than it does.2 Pulling on the same swell of vibrant orchestrations, sweeping melodies, to heavy rock crescendos, the central journey still lands with “Give Me Hell” (and reprised intensity on “The Stormchaser”) possessing the same bravado of a young Pain of Salvation affair.3 It just takes a while to get there.
“Feet firm on the mountain with no voice to speak, and nothing left to say” Grey blares with a vulnerable focus for the thunderous closer “Mute,” whose various instrumental decorations display what Caligula’s Horse accomplish best in this sorrowful collection of vignettes: musical cohesion. Save for principle banger “Golem,” primary songwriter and guitarist Sam Vallen flexes his compositional chops throughout recurring motifs that flitter about the introductions of songs to signal that they belong in this Charcoal Grace world. In extended cuts, intro “The World Breathes…” and closer “Mute,” Vallen warps the core melodies to each through the play of lush orchestral backings, carefully placed piano accompaniment, and guest flute arrangement, to allow each recollection to stoke a fiery apex. The atmospheric qualities throughout Charcoal Grace resemble that of an instrumental artist like Plini, so while they may not always feel like a movie with the best dialogue, they do feel like home.
Loving this album could have been easy, but Caligula’s Horse needed to find an outlet over the past few years, just as we all did. Charcoal Grace, in that sense, carries the trademarked humanistic scarring, that hard-to-mask reality that separates this band from its peers. You can’t call this rough around the edges by any means—it’s delicate and elegant and extravagant and almost fluorescent in its brightness. You can’t call this stumbling—it’s assembled and referential and efforted and truly ambitious in its reach. That’s just it. Charcoal Grace reaches. And it grips me a lot—sometimes not at all—sometimes I pull away. It lives, just like you and me, just like those who created it. And, as I often tell myself when I stare into the mirror at the hardest times of this life, I wish it were better.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Inside Out Music | Bandcamp
Websites: caligulashorse.com | facebook.com/caligulashorseband
Releases Worldwide: January 26th, 2024
