CALIGULA'S HORSE — Charcoal Grace (review)

CALIGULA'S HORSE — Charcoal Grace album cover

Album · 2024 · Progressive Metal

3/5 · 2024-03-03
siLLy puPPy

Galloping gallantly over the vast plains of the metal universe, Australia’s CALIGULA’S HORSE has nurtured the qualities of a fine thoroughbred in the prog world where the murky bardo area of progressive metal and progressive rock merge into brackish waters. These Aussies have been in the top tiers of the prog metal world for well over a decade now releasing a series of critically acclaimed albums with radiant rise to the upper echelons of prog metal royalty with the combo effect of 2015’s “Bloom” in tandem with 2017’s “In Contact.” The band evoked a larger than life prog metal congeries of tricks and trinkets that has allowed the band to stand out amongst the legions of progger metalheads vying for a piece of the action but these crafty chaps from Brisbane have always been a step or two ahead of the competition.

Changes are what the 2020s are all about the CALIGULA’S HORSE has certainly not eschewed its own series of challenges. In the last four years since “Rise Radiant” was released the band has officially seen guitarist Adrian Goleby exit from the team and now officially a quartet with Sam Vallen handling all guitar duties on the band’s sixth studio album CHARCOAL GRACE which still rock all those Steely Dan influenced add2 chords like no other. CHARCOAL GRACE gracefully offers nine tracks at 62 minutes of playing time and although the famous twin guitar attacks have now been completely abandoned for a more streamlined approach, the album continues the plethora of polyrhythms, the clusters of complexity and the same overall atmospheric ambience meets djent-ish chugging sessions all dressed up with Jim Grey’s fragile vocal intricacies.

Taking on a more Riverside meets Leprous demeanor, CALIGULA’S HORSE has traded the dueling axe action for a more keyboard saturated series of drifting cloud covered atmospheres that find heftier contrasting bouts of prog metal reinforcement. While tamped down a few notches from top peak prowess mode, CHARCOAL GRACE delivers a rather predictable procession of prancing prog rockers like a well-trained steeplechaser navigating a predictable course of action. The band plays it safe and sticks to the playbook for the most part with the expected prog by numbers approach that many a modern prog metal band has fallen victim to and an approach that aims to drift subtly into a more “commercial” acceptance by taming the rough around the edges aspects while amping up the melodic contrapuntal resonance of the complimentary layers of instrumentation.

“The World Breathes With Me” offers CALIGULA’S HORSE fans an instant comfort zone game plan with lush atmospheric developments before erupting into the chugga-chug marathon of djent-fueled guitar plucks and corresponding bass and drum obsequiousness. Add an obligatory four part concept suite of the title tracks and you can’t go wrong but the problem is that at this point in the 21st century, this style of prog metal sounds completely out of fashion and in many ways bands such as CALIGULA’S HORSE have become a fossilized self-induced retro scene of their own idiosyncratic making. Is it bad to continue to make music that doesn’t “progress” like the term “progressive” implies? Well, that’s the million dollar question of course and left to the individual to decide for him / herself but for yours truly there comes a time where it sounds like a band is beginning to regress and there, my musical friends, is the pasture CALIGULA’S HORSE seems to have retired to after a fruitful run on the racetrack.

It’s always difficult for me to be too harsh on bands that have found a comfort zone and a fanbase and have a difficult time balancing the progression part with the cash in to make a living in an increasingly more expense planet to reside upon but at this point this type of prog metal just sounds generic to me and therefore no matter how well played and how perfectly executed in every way, what really matters at the end of the day is how do the tracks speak to me and after sitting through CHARCOAL GRACE and imbibing the sonic frequencies that bathe my very soul, i am left feeling indifferent and unmoved by the dramatic series of sounds that are supposed to evoke some sort of reaction. To be honest, the airy fairy sounding bands in the prog metal world never have appealed to me as much as the more adventurous thrill seekers but every once in a while a band like Pain of Salvation or Leprous proves me wrong with instantly contagious emotionally connective composiitons. Unfortunately CALIGULA’S HORSE doesn’t evoke that same visceral reaction and CHARCOAL GRACE does even less than previous offerings. Not a bad album by any means but sounds a bit too middle of the road for my liking.