Black Horse
formed in the spring of 2004 when Brooklyn-based Seattle-transplants April
Goettle (vocals, guitar, synth) and AP Schroder (vocals, guitar, programming)
consolidated their musical endeavors into a duo. Tired of sharing members
with other bands who were erratically on tour, thus keeping them in a constant
holding pattern, Black Horse emerged as the communion of Goettle, Schroder
and a drum machine, pounding out a wall of bleak and blackened rock and roll
dirges that marry the scrape of industrial rhythms and distortion with a strong
and womanly edge.
On their debut full-length, The Black Arts of Black Horse, Goettle’s
vocalizations don’t position her as an antagonist as much as they cast
her as a sturdy front woman; a feminist to be sure, friend or foe you decide.
She’s a songwriter who understands the balance of language from the brain,
the heart and the guts, and the subtle shades with which each one can add
grit and color to the others. All of this is underscored by Schroder’s
unwavering rhythms that are programmed into the drum machine and ground to
bits under an impenetrable duel-guitar traipse.
Each song is a capsule of discomfort, confrontation and catharsis, streamlined
and put on display as aggressive pop fodder. Goettle has stated, “If
you're going to bother writing lyrics you want people to hear, they should
be worth listening to,” and she has held herself to a strict standard
of songwriting that strikes with visceral and challenging tenacity.
The Black Arts… wanders through a terrain of noisy metal riffs and mechanical
rhythms under a slow burn of fuzz, melody and undeniable hooks. Think Big
Black, the Jesus and Mary Chain circa Psychocandy, Wire’s earliest days,
Black Sabbath, PJ Harvey and Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundtrack and you’re
in the right neighborhood; and it’s a scary one at that.
Goettle and Schroder have constructed a decidedly lo-fi beast with The Black
Arts… One in which the noise and tension that swells between every note
and every intentional sound carries just as much weight in the music as everything
else.
The album’s opening number, “Shake Shake Shake” is an apocalyptic
strip-club banger that is both sleazy and sultry in its worship of riff and
strut that is at turns sexy and ominous, captivating and daunting. And as
the crash of “Lapdance Technician” grinds forward, the album’s
doom-laden atmosphere takes shape. “Hey Sailor” offers brief moment
of reflection as Goettle croons over longing, heartbreak and the consequences
of bad behavior. But the high-end skulk of steel strings and drum machine
miasma only serves to pull the song back into the heat of anxiety and aggression.
This brand of high-energy, high release pace is at the core of Black Horse’s
mad dash into the dark side. As such The Black Arts of Black Horse is a disquieting
affair; on that strikes below the belt and above and directly to the brain,
and will grab young feminists and metal heads alike.
The Village Voice
YOUNG WIDOWS + THE AUSTERITY
PROGRAM + TOMBS + BLACK HORSE
"A night of indie-friendly metal and metal-friendly indie.... leaner/poppier
drum machine band Black Horse let the Rolands and the hooks do the talking..."
The Daily Copper/
Copper Press
We hear the drum machine can get a bit cranky on tour. And has a drinking
problem.
Seattle's big black nasty two-piece + drum machine will be touring in
October. Singer/guitarist April Goettle is sultry but serious, meaning she
don't just look real good, she sing real good, too, see? And AP (of The
Building Press), his guitar gets nastier than a Rapeman riff run through an
industrial-sized plastic shredder. Think Royal Trux without the drugs and
with better songs, Big Black if Albini wore a dress (and had a lower voice),
and maybe the whole goddamned state of Memphis - er, Tennessee.
The Stranger Seattle,
WA
Jennifer Maerz
"There's an evil gleam to Black Horse's dusky two guitar rock, with lyrics
that slink into the dark corners of dive bars and hot late night encounters..."
-Jennifer Maerz, The Stranger September 16, 2004
Williamette Weekly
Portland, OR
Kate Silver
Black Horse's dual-guitar rock recalls the Kills on a professional hit, with
drum-machine clips as ammo. April Goettle and her partner A.P. Schroder don't
just pervert the blues on their six-track demo recording but meld the kind
of tense, lo-fi pigfuck that Steve Albini loses himself in analog tape trying
to re-create. (KS)
San Fransisco Examiner SF, CA
Bill Picture
Double-guitar coeds Black Horse and their trusty drum machine provide the
sleazy, grind-heavy soundtrack for riding out the sloppy tail end of a weekend-long
bender in the dark and sticky corner of a seedy, highway-side strip joint.
Singer-guitarist April Goettle lures you in with her seductive junkie whine,
then her partner-in-crime, AP Schroder, sneaks up behind you, hits you over
the head with a hellish blast of distortion and rifles through your pockets.
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