I laughed when I read their sound described as, “Imagine a 5 year old playing Nintendo and drinking Kool-Aid as he gets run over by Pantera’s tour bus,” and I’m laughing as I write this. Mainly because HORSE the Band is a terrible name for a band and also a terrible name for a horse, but also because I can’t believe how much I like this (actually I can). HORSE the Band is a (strangely) amazing metalcore band from California whose gimmick is incorporating silly 8-bit sounding keyboard parts into their tunes. While it sounds ridiculous it works. I’ve heard their sound described as “Nintendocore” which is pretty accurate, but rather then simply playing Nintendo game theme songs like The Advantage, HTB (instead) creates the soundtrack to (what could be) the gnarliest video game ever.

Musically they sound like a cross between Reggie and the Full Effect, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Alexisonfire but with those damn video-game sounding synthesizers added to the mix. It isn’t something that I really should like, but its like a car wreck on the highway that you can’t take your eyes off of. Its nothing more than schizophrenic technical metalcore with screamed/spoken vocals and (sometimes) inane lyrics. Highly recommended. Their latest full-length, The Mechanical Hand is out now on Koch Records.

MP3 | HORSE The Band – Birdo The Mechanical Hand
MP3 | HORSE The Band – The Black Hole The Mechanical Hand

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