Disaster trick

When Dimitris Yiannopoulos was a teenager, he thought he might be living in a dream. Alienated, anxious and troubled, he tried his best to process a world from which he felt cut off. “I refused to believe anything I saw was happening to me or even that it was happening at all,” she said Alston pudding in 2016. “Everything freaked me out.” He says he's since overcome his existential angst, but similar feelings have clearly found a home in the slowness of the songs he makes on Horse Jumper of Love.

The forms of these songs have occasionally changed over the years—from hushed, stripped-down recordings reminiscent of Phil Elverum's sky-gazing folk songs to labored lo-fi experiments in the mold of Bedhead's desperate slowcore to the strange Siamese Dream cover—but what unites them all is Yiannopoulos' skewed approach to songwriting. His lyrics are vivid but fragmented and opaque. it often sounds like someone describing a dream as their eyes slowly open.

On the band's new album Disaster trickYiannopoulos often does just that. He reminisces or refers to dreams in four separate songs, and throughout the record, his writing is equal parts disorienting and enigmatic. On opener 'Snow Angel', he sings about funerals and drownings, looming evil and the desire to be left alone. Elsewhere he ponders the void, witnesses bloodbaths and remembers, through a fog, an argument that went too far. It's hard to piece together specific narratives, but his cryptic koans and hazy memories have a strangely affecting power.

For all the uncertainty and malaise reflected in the lyrics, Disaster trick is full of some of the band's most focused and direct arrangements. The building blocks of each track are the same: boring guitar lines from Yiannopoulos and heavy contributions from the rhythm section of drummer James Doran and bassist John Margaris. But the band has more focus and purpose this time around. Yiannopoulos album/disaster-trick” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://horsejumperoflove.bandcamp.com/album/disaster-trick"}” href=”https://horsejumperoflove.bandcamp.com/album/disaster-trick” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>he says it's the first time they've actually approached the recording process with a clear head, instead of just “showing up in a studio, drinking and recording,” and it shows—no matter how murky the lyrics are, the playing is grounded and underwhelming.

The snow-blind shoegaze of 'Snow Angel' inspires a new kind of gravitas for the band. And even when operating in more intimate, slowcore modes, as on the leaden “Wait by the Stairs,” they bring exciting new elements to their sound. The song's muddy arpeggios and rhythms are inspired by airy harmonies from Wednesday's Karly Hartzman. the deliberate decoration feels like a genuine innovation for a band that often favors more spartan arrangements.

With Disaster trickHorse Jumper of Love subtly expands their sound without losing the visceral, eerie interplay of their melodies, dizzying guitar lines and snaking rhythms that blur together in a narcotic stream. It's a fitting accompaniment, as never before, to Yiannopoulos' sleepy mumbles. Derived from his detached tradition, the songs reflect the feeling of distance on the couch after a particularly rough day, the bleak details of what you've been through floating numbly in the periphery of your awareness, always just out of reach.