NOSTALGIA, MY MUSE: Horrid Red - Celestial Joy
Earlier this week, I found myself browsing for new music at two-thirty in the morning. I was lying in the dark with my laptop serving as the only source of light. The task of searching for music can be a frustrating one, especially when nothing seems to have the ability to reach out, latch onto you, and inflict a certain emotion that happens to be precisely what you need at that particular point in your life. As I was about to give up on my search, this sensation came over me when I listened to Horrid Red’s Celestial Joy.
I fell into its lavish sea of sound while exploring artists related to Lust For Youth, a post-punk band formed in Sweden, who later gained Copenhagen powerhouse, Loke Rahbek. Celestial Joy isn’t one that instantaneously attracts its listeners. The opening track, “Wheel of the Dad,” begins with music that almost sounds Medieval, transitioning into a melodic guitar line that sounds like it could be in a DIIV or Communions song.
Frontman Bunker Wolf vocals are shocking at first. Born in Germany, he sings every song in his native tongue with a low timbre that is most comparable to Mike Sniper’s in his project Blank Dogs. When combining the guitar riffs that relate closely to multiple Captured Tracks and Posh Isolation artists with Mike Sniper’s vocals, in German, it’s hard to go wrong.
Despite my lack of experience with the German language, if this album came out this year, it would easily be my favorite of 2015, and January isn’t even over. This is what made this particular listening experience so pure. It was all about the feeling that was inflicted from the music itself, as opposed to the effect of the lyrical content and themes. You can experience what Bunker Wolf is portraying through his delivery of the vocals, the breaths he takes, and the range of dynamic levels. However, it is merely a suggestion of how the listener should feel.
There are multiple standouts on the album: “Forever is Too Late,” “Men and Sand,” “Marble Staircase III,” etc., etc. None can compare to their ode to existence, “Nothing in My Heart.” When you close yours eyes and listen to each intricate transition, there is a sense of both euphoria and desolation that wraps itself around every crevice and drowns you. A similar happening can be felt in the last third of the album as the instrumental piano ballad “Meager Vines” comes out of nowhere and then transitions into “Colored Lights,” a song that will leave you with a desire to inquire.
While Bunker Wolf is from Germany, other members are from San Francisco. Together, the group is able to compile influences from both countries to make music that appears both familiar and foreign. Celestial Joy is exactly what the album title foreshadows: an atmospheric sound that brings so much light to its listeners.
-Katie Cheyne
