For a moment, Horse Jumper of Love was inscrutable. Dealing almost entirely in murky images circumventing internal snapshots of a memoir remembered only in brief glimpses, narratives proved elusive, dancing just out of reach as images refused to focus. Their earlier works, particularly 2017’s self-titled release and its successor, 2019’s So Divine, rested comfortably in this territory. Songwriter Dmitri Giannopoulos honed in on this tendency towards haze, shrouding the words in an atmosphere wrought from the immaculately slow, melodic guitar.
In 2022, the band sped things up a bit, putting forth The Natural Part, a record nestled far more neatly among the hallmarks of the early 2010s ‘indie rock’ ‘scene,’ with heavier-handed production and a more straightforward approach to the craft itself. By the time last year’s Heartbreak Rules came out, the band had evolved again. In a collection of songs cloaked in warmth and light, we saw Giannopoulos more assured, more open in his writing and reflecting that in the mostly acoustic-based arrangements. While still certainly a slowcore record, it felt less like a return to form than a natural progression for a band so firmly fixed in the inescapable clutches of the genre label.
In March of this year, the band released ‘Gates of Heaven,’ joined by another arrangement of ‘Snake Eyes,’ a standout from Heartbreak Rules. Immediately, it was clear this was something different. Giannopoulos, so often a passive actor in his first-person narratives, centers this song through his eyes, with his hands at the helm. As the year went on more singles, as well as an official album announcement, trickled out. With each single, it became harder to ignore the fact that this year’s Disaster Trick, the band’s fifth on Run For Cover, would be an album much more attuned to the prevailing zeitgeist. In short? It borders on, and often applies for citizenship in, the territory of a shoegaze album. Opener ‘Snow Angel’ hits you like a plow as a brief moment of acoustic guitar is overwhelmed by impatient distortion, and even more traditional slowcore songs like ‘Wink’ are heavier, faster, and less delicate than one would expect from a band with a catalog like Horse Jumper of Love’s. Throughout the album, too, we see the band finding themselves far more comfortable with catchier melodies, actual choruses, and more complex arrangements than past releases have indicated.
That isn’t, however, to level an accusation of sheer monotony at this album, there exist quite a few contractions and swellings as it progressions, the most notable of which being the painstakingly gentle ‘Word.’ A song unlike any other on the LP, ‘Word’ is almost inexplicably spectacular. Its core is simple, singly strummed chords without any intricacy in arrangement and lines that would be idiotic were they not incredibly gutting. ‘Word’ is bare and honest, shirking symbolism to instead inhabit the almost suppliant position of shared blame in an argument with a lover.
The back half of the album is at once classic Horse Jumper and a reflection of the influence of consistent touring with bands like They are Gutting a Body of Water, Wednesday, and Full Body 2 – leaning even further into the propulsive, noisy overtones so often wielded by the progenitors of the modern shoegaze revival. Once you cut through the gauze, however, something striking emerges: at its core, this isn’t a shoegaze album. It’s not even really a slowcore album. This is a jangle-pop album.
Review by Walker Price
