Discovery of new music is an exciting thing. I don't care how you want to approach it, but hearing great music, or potentially great, from a band you have never listened to before is a beautiful experience. Music can be a transcendent experience. Music can transport you to other worlds and times, it can lift you to the heavens or pummel you into the dirt with is excellence. On the flip side, searching for good music can be like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack. What does this have to do with Mose Giganticus? Well, with this band you have found the needle. However, the needle is not quite in pristine shape. You see, this is a band that has a unique sound, a mash up of a variety of styles, however it is also music that does not hide man of it's influences. The result is an album that is infectious, addictive, and introduces you to a talent shows a lot of potential for future work while still delivering in the present.
The band is actually a singular entry, Matthew Garfield. He is the one man behind the music on Gift Horse. It is not unlike Sal Abruscato and his recent creation of A Pale Horse Named Death, an artist with a vision and a talent that crosses instrumental barriers has taken to the studio to render his vision. It quite an undertaking, but one that Garfield seems to be up tot he task for.
The music will bring to mind the likes of Mastodon, The Melvins, Kylesa, and Genghis Tron. The style crosses doom, toner, grunge, electronically, sludge, and probably a few others. It is heavy, immediate, and epic in its scope. This is evident right from the start of "Last Resort" and driven home with "The Left Path."
Gift Horse is the sort of album that gets in, makes its argument, and gets out quick. It clocks in right around 30-minutes and only has seven songs. In some ways I would have preferred that it take a little longer to present its case, it feels likely is over just as it is catching it's stride.
Some could argue that it slips into a pattern of similarity over its runtime, but that is not a problem for me. Some bands suffer from sameness over an album and that drags it into mediocrity, while others use that to their advantage, turning a collection if songs into an album. Mose Giganticus goes about it the right way. This is an album, not just songs. Sometimes it feels like this is a lost art in the wake of iTunes and people just being singles. Is the album dying? I hope not. Glad to see interesting bands like this keeping the idea alive.
Recommended.
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