Pale Horses

AlbumJun 16 / 201511 songs, 39m 25s
Indie Rock
Popular

The one constant in mewithoutYou's storied career has been lead singer Aaron Weiss' ability to sketch ornate, thought-provoking narratives. Seamlessly weaving his signature holler amidst whispered storytelling and stream-of-consciousness outpourings, his latest offerings vacillate between the emotionally wracked, vibrantly symbolic, and ambiguously metaphysical. His meandering, technicolor vision of a world apocalyptic—populated with werewolves and vulturemen, shape-shifters and apparitions, android whales and an Idaho bride—combines the fantastic opulence of the group’s recent albums with the vulnerable personal confessions of their earliest work. Longtime band-mates Mike Weiss, Rickie Mazzotta and Greg Jehanian continue to craft dramatic, nightmare soundscapes which lavishly complement their singer’s ecstatic hallucinations. The addition of Brandon Beaver (of Buried Beds, the Silver Ages) allows the group as a 5-piece to revisit its earlier intricate, layered fretwork, while adding new depths of vocal harmonies and ever-peculiar arrangements. Musically, the group hearkens boldly to the raw intensity of 2004's Catch for Us the Foxes, while building on the rich imagery of 2006's Brother, Sister. Epic in scope, Pale Horses is mewithoutYou at their best, breathing fresh life into the end times, gloriously terrifying and hauntingly iconic.

7.2 / 10

The Philadelphia post-hardcore band mewithoutYou's lyricist Aaron Weiss draws together Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions, forming an intricate, collagist cosmology. Musically, Pale Horses functions as a kind of career summary, compressing the group's musical digressions into a coherent whole.

5 / 10

7 / 10

Philadelphia's post-hardcore heroes go heavy on the literary and religious allusions throughout their sixth album in five years.

4 / 5

The sixth studio long-player from the mercurial, faith-based, Philly-bred indie rockers, Pale Horses finds mewithoutYou presenting a sort of amalgam of all of their previous sonic guises, with an emphasis on returning to the heavy, post-hardcore sound of early works like [A --> B] Life and Catch for Us the Foxes.

8 / 10

Music Review: mewithoutYou - Pale Horses

4.0 / 5