Boston trio Horse Jumper of Love’s latest album Disaster Trick acts like a great exhale. One that you can make in the safety of your bedroom, where you can let out just enough rage to not catch the attention of your parents. Opening track “Snow Angel” captures this dynamic from the start, when slow guitar strums give way to grungy rock just seconds later. It’s a shift the trio pull off with a remarkable and inevitable precision that’s consistent across the album’s half-hour runtime. Each song is slow and purposeful, and many are dressed up with just enough noise to capture the emotional pains that come with reflection and healing.
Since their 2017 self-titled, the trio of frontman Dimitri Giannopoulos, bassist John Margaris and drummer James Doran have taken various approaches to their intimate indie rock. At times, they imbued their songwriting with off-kilter anthems (“Sitting on the Porch at Night”), and breezy ballads (“I Poured Sugar in Your Shoes”). Yet Disaster Trick stands out thanks to its unwavering focus. The sparse “Word” opens with a snare strike, simple strums and Giannopoulos’ raw vocals in a way that evokes Bonnie Prince Billy. The direct, purposeful storytelling of “Lip Reader” could find a place in Alex G’s House of Sugar.
It’s impossible to separate Disaster Trick from its recording at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, North Carolina. Alex Farrar produced the album, whose credits involve some of the most notable indie artists of this decade, from Wednesday and Indigo De Souza to Snail Mail and Waxahatchee. Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman and MJ Lenderman are featured on several tracks, as is indie rocker Ella O’Connor Williams (a.k.a Squirrel Flower). Yet their presence only enhances and never overshadows the trio’s music.
For frontman Dimitri Giannopoulos, Disaster Trick is as much a personal reset as a creative one: this is the first album made alongside his recent sobriety. He explains in the accompanying album bio that while with previous albums the band would show up, drink and record, “Here, everything felt purposeful.” Purposeful is the best way to describe songs like album highlight “Today’s Iconoclast”, where bleak guitar lines ride alongside Giannopoulos’ bleaker lyrics. “Today’s iconoclast / The feeling never lasts,” hints at the naiveté of rebellion for rebellion’s sake. Yet the bridge plays out the story in visceral detail: “I saw your wings get clipped / It’s a bloodbath / You could call it what you’d like.” The song would be a downer if not for the guitar that shifts into a comforting cradle halfway in. Each member’s individual playing comes together at the song’s end, delivering a solid sendoff that recalls the noisier moments of collaborative masterminds Big Thief.
Short story writers know the importance of pacing and where to start the action. Giannopoulos often drops us right at the climax of his vignettes, whether it be looking at his lover from another room (“Lip Reader”), or right after requesting a reunion at a coveted fountain (“Wait by the Stairs”). These scenes imply a pain already inflicted, and he has nothing to do but repent, try to do better, and ask for forgiveness. The band’s music muddies the implied outcomes. The dreary sway of “Lip Reader” evokes the regret that hits when getting drenched in a rainstorm. The slow yet thrashing grunge that ends “Wait by the Stairs” implies things ended in an emotional disaster.
Yet, true to the band’s mission statement, growth is implied on album closer and highlight “Nude Descending”. “You know I can’t spend the night,” Giannopoulos sings, dropping the listener into the end of another unfortunate scene. The song’s unwavering bass line plays like an invasive thought, one that can come from guilt. The band builds toward a climax of restless fretting before landing with a thud: “Last night, you were, in my dreams / Well, you know what that means.” The lines feel like a breakthrough, like something close to growth. And with that, Giannopoulos can exhale, knowing he can do better.
