Reviews: Caligula's Horse (Review By Matt Bladen)

Caligula's Horse - Charcoal Grace (InsideOut Music)

In several years from now Charcoal Grace will be remembered as the album upon which Australian prog maestros Caligula’s Horse came of age. Formed in 2011, each of their albums is a step forward, coming into their creative stride on Bloom (2015), then improving again through In Contact (2017) and Rise Radiant (2021), drawing critical and public acclaim.

Charcoal Grace is their sixth studio album and their fourth on InsideOut Music and it’s not conceptual but like all good prog bands there’s themes that link songs together and it even starts with a title track suite. I love the kind of music Caligula’s Horse make, it’s the same kind of emotional, post millennial wonderment band such as Haken, Leprous and Soen partake in and I can’t get enough of it. The theme of the album is catharsis, the catharsis of almost starting again after the Rise Radiant period of 2019/2020, readjusting the outlook to one of quiet hopefulness, focussed on loss and silence. Musically it’s these moments of refection, the quiet parts, the few seconds of stillness and zero noise that are the most affecting. 

Jim Grey’s aching, longing, shrill vocal soars with regret but resolution, breaking right at the top of the register with a needed fragility. It’s full of discovery, of ones place in the world, the juxtaposition of quietness and loudness as ambient, atmospheric introspection is countered by bold, brash, musical extroversion. Charcoal Grace opens with The World Breathes With Me, ten minutes of dazzling musical shape shifting, Josh Griffin’s drumming setting out the intention of the track and the record with some technically gifted drumming ready to couple with the palm muted chugging grooves of bassist Dale Prinsse, his partnership with guitarist Jim Grey in parallel, but when Jim sets off on the melodic solos and lead breaks its Dale that keeps the momentum of the track, adding his own flourishes to keep the ears excited on some of the longer tracks. 

I mentioned about Caligula’s Horse being part of the same scene as bands above, on the choppy djentisms of Golem but on Charcoal Grace I can hear some influences from foundations of prog metal such as Porcupine Tree and the post-Train Of Thought era Dream Theater. Much of the latter two come on the 4-part title track suite, though Vigil takes the throbbing repetition of Tool as a base note, though it’s more Tool by Torchlight as it stretches into the dynamic and euphoric Give Me Hell. This is conceptual but of course links in with the wider themes on the album. These four songs form the heart of the album, each stylistically different but forming a coherent narrative with the instrumentals and the lyrics. 

After the suite settles you in to the idea that anything can happen they completely level you with Sails, a beautiful song which has Pink Floyd levels of melodic fervour, the record closing out with the special Mute where those Toolisms happen again. There will be lots of AOTY talk this year, many saying it can’t be in January, well currently my album of 2024 is Charcoal Grace and it may stay that way for a while to come. 

Caligula’s Horse are Imperators of the prog world on this sixth album. 10/10