Hold Your Horse Is

Hella

I should've talked about this album last year considering that 2022 was the 20th anniversary of this watershed math rock record, but I ended up talking about Tripper instead. Look, I think I like that record just a little bit more. The technicality is pulled back just a bit so that the riffs and the hooks are a little more accessible. The drums have a little more definition to them so you can really get the most out of Zach Hill's insane musicianship. And the production has more body, it's just a more powerful sounding record. Make no mistake though, Hold Your Horse Is *is* the more important record.

It introduced us to Spencer Seim, a truly innovative guitar player who pushed the boundaries of what was possible on the instrument. It also introduced us to Zach Hill, mine and many a drummer's favourite drummer. Mostly known for his mind-blowing single-foot bass pedal skills, but Hill is also an incredibly physical player who generates a great deal of power to any track he contributes his playing to. He's also very forward thinking in instrument choice, playing very unorthodox drum setups made up of frankensteined drum kits and stacks of broken cymbals. For 2002, what this duo did together was bewildering. Listening to this record for the first time did not compute, and after almost fifteen years of revisiting it and studying live videos, I'm still puzzled as to how they are pulling this off. The magic of Hold Your Horse Is *is* that it's captivatingly imperceivable, and that's why I've continued to come back after so many years.

It's really hard to dive into the nitty gritty of this record without getting into technical jargon like two-handed tapping, sliding, hammer-ons and pull-offs, single foot doubles among and other techniques that won't mean anything to your casual music listener. But I would be remiss if I didn't at least try to convince you to listen to this. We have a bit of a deceptive opening with the chiptune The D.Elkan which unexpectedly goes right into Biblical Violence. It's fast and one of the most technical displays on the record. It doesn't let up from start to finish. Been a Long Time Cousin feels like you're racing down the freeway and you see nothing but motion blur at the sides of your vision with the bending guitar chords used as the song's main motif. 1-800-GHOST-DANCE begins with a really ear grabbing riff, almost as if Spencer Seim took a section of a shred-filled metal guitar solo and looped this one particular guitar move over and over. The song then breaks off into these disconnected passages that don't seem to have any connection to where the song was before, but it always finds itself back at that original riff. It's like a math rock odyssey. Cafeteria Bananas has some of the most insane drum parts, but there's a particular fill he plays so effortlessly again utilizing just one foot on the kick drum. It's a very recognizable and standard pattern for drummers, but to play it that fast, that cleanly, with one foot just seems unreal to me.

There's only one song that I don't really care for as much, and that's Brown Metal. This black sheep of the batch has Spencer Seim tremolo picking away as Zach Hill makes a racket on a ton of metallic percussion. While I do like the more standard sounding drums and grooves at the end of the song, the guitars become quite monotonous and grating. That's really the only blemish on this otherwise perfect and groundbreaking record. Hold Your Horse Is *is* the purest form of musical experimentation, in so far as the source of innovation isn't so much in the sound, but in the performance. It is simply two guys trying to push what is possible on the guitar and drums, and there is no one, and I mean no one, else on the Earth who does it quite like Spencer Seim and Zach Hill. While I don't think it is their best record, it's certainly their most important. You can't deny that this record was a tectonic shift in the landscape of experimental rock that would go on to influence so many nerds and weirdos.