ALBUM REVIEW: Charcoal Grace – Caligula’s Horse
In their 13-year history, prog gods CALIGULA’S HORSE have managed to achieve something beyond any metric of fame or fortune; genuine reverence. Simply put, when the band speaks, the world listens. They may not have the numbers to rival contemporaries HAKEN or LEPROUS, but their relentless penchant for pushing the genre forward has taught many to look past arbitrary metrics and marvel at the voice of one of modern prog’s most defining orators. Yet, this is a voice whose cries have recently struggled to cut through the mire. The astonishing Rise Radiant (2021) was cruelly gifted at the pandemic’s peak, postponing what should have been a monumental celebration with dreams of touring the world swiftly crushed. The world should have known better than to put genius on hold, and now we bathe in its just recompense: Charcoal Grace.
It is, by definition, hyperbole for the band to outdo themselves but, out of spite for the world that forced them into hiatus, CALIGULA’S HORSE deliver above and beyond their own boundless reach. When you’re operating at the level at which the band resides, exploring uncharted ground can be a daunting task. Where do you find guidance when you’re leading the way? Their previous two records, though carved from the same oak, followed sporadically different grains. The coveted concept LP, In Contact (2017), was a behemoth in scale and scope, particularly from a narrative perspective where four tragic tales of the arts explore labyrinthian soundscapes. Rise Radiant, meanwhile, traded size for cinematics in anthemic, power-driven compositions that reminded listeners that this isn’t a band to write themselves into a corner. Ever in search of their limits, CALIGULA’S HORSE marry the greatest parts of both in Charcoal Grace while discovering entirely new words in their language of whispered fury and savage beauty.
The Aussies have long provided perfect symmetry between their technical prowess and their innate fluency to speak to a stranger as if an old friend. Charcoal Grace effortlessly matches the musical ambition of those that came before, but it is its emotional resonance that will leave fans spellbound. What strikes first is the album’s dichotomous armament of the harrowing and the plainly beautiful. Charcoal Grace can be a bleak listen, a despaired whimper confined to isolation – yet, one that also cries in an equally fervent resolve as it surges bravely forward.
Opener The World Breathes With Me, the first of many album highlights, embodies this very medley. The ten-minute monolith wastes no time in introducing the album’s palette, greeting with a wistful instrumental that grows slowly perturbed before crashing entirely into a puncturing breakdown. The track tastefully harkens back to the revered Graves, with its serpentine structure and meticulous but no less organic manipulation of light and dark. Like its spiritual predecessor, the album’s opener ends with the first of many set-piece moments and it is these moments that make Charcoal Grace such an indelible listen.
Golem and The Stormchaser live up to their more concise format with distinct and throat-tearing hooks while closer Mute matches its fellow bookend in sheer scope while stretching the band’s palette further with wind instruments in its most tender moments, and sinister tremolos and pinch harmonics in its least forgiving. Even the title track itself, a four-part, 24-minute epic that wrestles through a child’s relationship with an estranged parent, is replete with some of the band’s most musically diverse phrasing and composition – each chapter wading through the burdensome complexities of loss, love, and resilience. But perhaps most likely to be overlooked, in the company of such heavyweights, is Sails – arguably the most beautiful, most moving song the band has written. At a modest 4:30 runtime, it is not as complex, nor as ambitious as the remaining tracklist, but its whispered melodies and delicate plucking that climax in an eruption of melancholy guitar wails and cascading keys make it an endlessly rewarding yet heartbreaking work of art.
This, and so much more of Charcoal Grace’s soaring excellence, is the product of yet another flawless bout of songwriting from the band. It strikes a perfect balance of songs feeling like the ‘familiar stranger’, with a warm resemblance of their past work but with enough flair to keep the band’s canon surging forward. This heavily translates to the lyrical penmanship, too, where the record speaks with a palpable personality, a weary and damaged companion who fights to come to terms with their pain and move onward.
This is extrapolated by career-defining performances across the line-up. Old Guard members Sam Vallen and Jim Grey give predictably striking presence on lead guitar and vocals respectively, the duo’s natural synergy to fulfil each other’s roles providing the album with its signature weary expression. Elsewhere Dale Prinsse solidifies his position in his second studio appearance, an adept bassist who, combined with the refined chops of drummer Josh Griffin, provides much of the album’s orientation to all things heavy.
Charcoal Grace is as much a reflection of the world that birthed it as it is a living entity, a creation that spits in the face of the stagnation and hopelessness of pandemic-stricken life and reminds us that greatness is rarely born with ease. Inventive, united, heartbreaking, blood-pumping, inspired – these are all familiar triumphs for CALIGULA’S HORSE but only here does it feel so purposeful; an act of artistic vengeance for what could have been. In doing so the band yet again show that they can do no wrong. But neither can they do ‘good’ nor ‘great’, nor ‘brilliant’. The bar to reach is ‘perfection’, anything less simply isn’t worth it.
Rating: 10/10
Charcoal Grace is set for release on January 26th via InsideOut Music.
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