As usual, upscale sound architecture from an experimental rock institution.
A pitch correction in the style of Auto-Tune would not necessarily have been the trick that one would like to attribute to the Horse Lords. The 57-second album intro features choral singing that seems as artificial as it is sacred, for which two newly hired vocalists are responsible. A vocal image emerges that is soon mixed up by flute tones that could have come from a Brazilian folk song.
But the introduction puts into sound what the experimental rock band, originally from Baltimore, is always able to achieve; they surprise with research and transformation music that knows how to consistently challenge a growing audience. This happens with many tracks on DEMAND TO BE TAKEN TO HEAVEN ALIVE! about sudden developmental steps, elements of the alienated sacred harp and flute music appear again in the form of small snippets at other parts of the album, math rock clusters are tangled up with serial music, grooves almost dart through sharp-edged sound corridors, the title track summarizes everything in the finale like in a suite in eight and a half minutes.
The Americans’ songs were created differently than the early recordings made in the 2010s. The four band members Owen Gardner (guitar), Max Eilbacher (bass), Andrew Bernstein (alto saxophone/percussion) and Sam Haberman (drums) now live in different cities. The first three met in Berlin for the sessions for the album, while Haberman developed his drum parts in Baltimore. Everything remains different in the league for sophisticated sound architecture.