The Boston trio Horse Jumper of Love would have been right at home in the mid-Nineties. Their brand of robust alt-rock suggests youths spent listening to early Low records and a bunch of Morphine ones. Still, there's enough distinctive on Disaster Trick, the trio's latest, as to recommend it.
Opener "Snow Angel" is lugubrious, while "Wink" has a bit more lightness to it. This one has backing vocals which help lessen the weight of the material, and those are likely from either Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman and/or Squirrel Flower’s Ella Williams. The lurching "Today's Iconoclast" takes In Utero-era Nirvana-isms and updates them for a new century. Heavy, the cut at least has a certain melodicism about it, and it's here that Disaster Trick starts to really kick in for a listener.
At their best here, like on "Wait for the Stars", Horse Jumper of Love map out a path to a version of post-punk that's got the roar of Hum and the sense of quiet tunefulness of early slowcore bands. There's a nice juxtaposition on this one and "Heavy Metal" between loud and quiet as to earn Horse Jumper of Love a recommendation from me, even if this record is a bit outside what I'd normally seek out.
Disaster Trick by Horse Jumper of Love is out now via Run for Cover Records.
[Photo: POND Creative]