Release Date: April 15, 2022
Label: Labelman (CD/LP/ Digital)
Share / Watch the New Single / Video for the Track “Have You Seen Bob” From Belgian Noise Rock Gang WHORSES RIGHT HERE; Full-Length Album Out Through LABELMAN.
Coments the band: “Have you seen bob is a set of musical uppercuts to give anger a place. It’s a personal apotheose of closure to a hellish period of mental and physical isolation. Two notes form the core of the song and it’s the most fun to perform live. It’s the focus track of the debut record released on the same day.”
Album Info: As boundless as their music, WHORSES debuts with a double album like it’s the most natural thing do to. But is it? For sure for these four noise cowboys: their nameless first brainchild pulls together a fat number of eighteen tracks, and although there might be some signs of schizophrenia showing, this true pièce de resistance breaths honesty and pure expression through every pore. Hitting hard and moving deep in one and the same creation: yea, you’re in for a ride.
The band gave their firstborn some kind of split personality, fusing two sides of each nine songs — one half sneeringly raw, the other floating on acoustic melodies. While those might seem opposites at first, both parts are equal elements of this album and inextricably linked with the multi-faceted identity of this bipolar band. Confusing? Weird? What? Wait.
‘WHORSES’ kicks off with the rough and ruthless noise rock sound the quartet is meanwhile known for — a collision of razor sharp riffs with drums that aim for a knock-out, shrill-shouting vocals and wringing song structures topped off with anti-climaxing breaks — but transcends to something totally different on the second side. There, the four let their inner cowboys walk in: using acoustic guitars, gentler singing and swaying rhythms, they play around with country, folky pop and more melancholy- based melodies, flowing from light-hearted to cleverly grooving.
Surprising? Not really. Consider this apparent contrast as two forms of expression that are born from the exact same core: hard and soft might be separated in their live existence, but are inevitably intertwined in everything WHORSES does and is. After all, you’re dealing with four emotional dudes here: they tend to channel some personal stuff through those songs, sometimes even transforming them into bad trip catalysts or spontaneous forms of self-therapy.
‘WHORSES’ was entirely recorded live, with the four playing each track together in the same room. What you hear is what you get, indeed: the band’s electrifying energy and genuine emotion is smashed directly onto this album, as a proper blueprint of a sound shivering and soothing, burning and embalming the soul at once.
Band Bio: Straight from the prairies of Kortrijk, WHORSES have buckled themselves firmly in the saddle of the Belgian rock scene since they struck their first note of noise, somewhere back in 2017. These four cowboys found each other in a mutual quest for something new, different, crooked or quirky in music – rough, hard and uncompromising, but without knowing what exactly it was they craved for at the time.
It didn’t take Harry, Baptiste, Timotheus and Tijl long to stumble upon a sound quite their own: already with debut single ‘Rocky’, they frankly showed how to blend clenched and bone hard noise tunes with more sensitive and softer parts. That fresh, cutting edge sound was praised by press and public right away: WHORSES quickly played Sonic City, Ancienne Belgique, Trix, Vooruit and VOLTA amongst others, got featured by Humo and Red Bull Music and were invited as support act for Belgian cult bands like STAKE, Brutus and Raketkanon.
Not long after that intensity became their trademark, a fair amount of other influences started to drip in. Winter times, a rehearsal space in renovation and lockdown periods made the band reach for acoustic set-ups, resulting in more melody-based and kinder compositions — although in any case, artists like Pavement, The Beatles or Eliot Smith were already undisputable influences from the start. But don’t expect their country-infused songs to sound like your average singer-songwriter: WHORSES wouldn’t be WHORSES without a little edgy, weird or uncommonly intriguing angle on literally anything they create.
In fact, WHORSES deliberately explores all which can exist in their own universe, and is not afraid to experiment with whatever comes out. Similar to a band like WEEN, there are no limitations or fixed expectations in music for them, but only endless amounts of possibilities. Add to that a good portion of humour and subtle self-irony — hello again, WEEN! – and you’ll quickly understand how the band’s self-titled debut came to be a double album, not limited in style or genre but filled with almost everything the four-piece worked on over the years.
It took the band only nine days to record the first full package of eighteen songs, retreating completely into Thomas Valkiers’ Hightime Studios during that odd Summer of 2020. And there, the magic happened: after months of pre production and other intense preparations, the four surrendered themselves completely to each other and their music, in all possible exuberance. They went into full cowboy mode, celebrating life, art and friendship in a true Burgundian way — as a grubby baby shower for a yet to be born bipolar but beautiful offspring. WHORSES is a band of extremes, bringing out the roughest and softest in themselves and in everyone who dares to dive into that pool of blunt, deep cutting, ever evolving and limitless sounds. A band, both live and on record both a possible noise splinter bomb as well as a funky foursome that dwells with comforting but slightly crooked country pop songs.
In case you missed it check the band`s videos for “Soy Cuck” and “Shaking” at PRETTYINNOISE AT THIS LOCATION. Full-Length Album OUT Through LABELMAN. Watch the “Bye Bye Memory” Video HERE and Check out the Video for “Splinters below.
WHORSES IS
Harry Descamps – vocals & guitars
Timotheus De Beir – guitar
Baptiste Navarro – bass
Tijl Van de Casteele – drums & vocals
WHORSES (CD & LP)
April 2022
Released on Labelman