Tag: Sam Vallen

Caligula’s Horse announce new album Charcoal Grace, out on January 26th, 2024 via InsideOutMusic; reveal video for first new single Golem and US/Canada tour dates

Australian progressive metal outfit Caligula’s Horse are back! The four-piece from Brisbane is ringing in a new chapter with a new single and video release for Golem and album announcement for Charcoal Grace, which is set for release in January 2024 via InsideOutMusic.

Pre-Order Charcoal Grace here: 

Charcoal Grace (lnk.to)

Golem is the first taste of the new album and gives a glimpse of the thematical depth of Charcoal Grace. The band says about the new single:

“Golem is about how we all struggled with the weight of expectation through the pandemic. We felt that weight acutely as musicians, being trapped with no notion of when, or even if, we would return to the life we knew, all while feeling the pressure to create our next work rising. While that’s our specific experience, the themes of Golem are something we can all relate to. It’s a heavy song with an emphasis on riffs and driving rhythms.”

Watch the video for Golem here: 

Stream Golem on your favorite DSPs here:

Caligula’s Horse – Golem (lnk.to)

Charcoal Grace is the 6th studio album of the band, and it combines raw rock power with immense emotional depth. Charcoal Grace is borne of the static hopelessness that the pandemic forced upon the band and, indeed, much of the world, these past few years. It is an album reckoning with the experiences and outcomes of this time geared, ultimately, towards catharsis – moving towards a more hopeful future.

The title Charcoal Grace is described by the band as “the grim allure and strange beauty in stillness, silence, and loss”.  This can be heard through the album’s 10-minute opening track “The World Breathes With Me,” a mission statement for the album’s main themes. Musically, it’s a work of contrasts, moving from the lightest ebb to the heaviest flow. Meanwhile, the second track and first single from the album, “Golem,” examines struggling with the weight of expectation through the pandemic. It’s a heavy song with an emphasis on riffs and driving rhythms.

At the center of the album is the 4-part title track suite, a 24-minute opus that pushes deeper into the album’s foundational themes: connection, alienation, and the ways humanity acts under duress. Musically, it covers every facet of the band’s vocabulary, from heavy and dense orchestral-accompanied intensity embodying the song’s darkest lyrical ideas, through to soft acoustic-driven moments and introspection.

Tracklist:

Side A

The World Breathes With Me (10:00)

Golem (05:20)

Side B

Charcoal Grace I: Prey (07:48)

Charcoal Grace II: A World Without (06:48)

Charcoal Grace III: Vigil (03:22)

Charcoal Grace IV: Give Me Hell (06:13) 

Side C

Sails (04:31)

The Stormchaser (05:57)

Mute (12:00) 

Charcoal Grace is available as Ltd. CD Digipak, CD Jewelcase (US only), Gatefold 2LP in various colours & Digital Album. 

The band recently played tours in both Europe and America to fully present their 2020 release “Rise Radiant” for the first time after the pandemic. Caligula’s Horse are now supporting Devin Townsend for three gigs in Australia before returning to the US next year in support of their new album.

Australia:

10/11/2023: The Forum, Melbourne

11/11/2023: The Metro, Sydney

12/11/2023: The Tivoli, Brisbane

US: 

31/01/2024: DC, Washington, Union Stage

01/02/2024: Philadelphia, PA, Underground Arts

02/02/2024: Boston, MA, Brighton Music Hall

03/02/2024: New York, NY, The Gramercy Theatre

04/02/2024: Montreal, Le Studio TD

06/02/2024: Toronto, The Axis Club

07/02/2024: Pittsburgh, PA, Thunderbird Cafe & Music Hall

08/02/2024: Chicago, IL, Lincoln Hall

12/02/2024: Charlotte, NC, The Underground

13/02/2024: Atlanta, GA, The Masquerade (Hell)

15/02/2024: Dallas, TX, Granada Theatre

16/02/2024: Austin, TX, Come & Take it Live

18/02/2024: Phoenix, AZ, Nile Half House

19/02/2024: San Diego, CA, Brick By Brick

20/02/2024: LA, CA, The Echoplex

21/02/2024: Berkley, CA, Cornerstone

23/02/2024: Seattle, WA, El Corazon

24/02/2024: Portland, OR, Hawthorne Theatre

25/02/2024: Vancouver, Rickshaw

Caligula’s Horse are 

Jim Grey – lead vocals

Sam Vallen – lead guitar

Josh Griffin – drums

Dale Prinsse – bass

Guest Review – Caligula’s Horse – Bloom – by Emma Roebuck

So, here we go with the first of Progradar’s ‘guest’ or ‘collaborative’ reviews and the first to step up to the plate is Emma Roebuck with a review of Caligula’s Horse and ‘Bloom’……….

Press_Cover_01

The third album from Caligula’s Horse ‘Bloom’, and my first exposure to their brand of Rock/metal/prog, finds me smiling. It passes a few tests for me, one played it through several times in the car and I didn’t feel the need to change the album and my passengers, who are not prog fans, were nodding along to riff laden music. The second test is playing it in the solitude of unwinding after a working week.

I won’t do a track by track break-down just say Sam Vallen, Jim Grey and the rest of the guys are a fine addition to Aussie prog-rock. It has something for most fans of the harder side of prog music, loads of hard, powerful guitar riffing with layered musical texture underneath. I am drawn instinctively to the better, mid-period, Dream Theater and Opeth stuff as you would expect but, also, Anathema too, not as copyists but as fellow travellers.

There is also plenty for the casual listener too, the songs draw you in and are accessible from the first listen, with plenty of variety from the softer Undergrowth creeping up on you to the aural ‘smack in the teeth’ half way through the Title track Bloom.  These guys can write songs with nuance and skill and are not formulaic by any stretch of the imagination.

The Stand out track for me is Dragonfly. Coming in at just short of 10 minutes, it has everything good that this album has to offer in one song. Trying to imagine this performed live, I see a great set closer in this one.

Press_Photo_01

Jim Grey has a voice that has remarkable range and works in the quieter moments and higher registers too, but maintains a power when they rock out and they can rock out, Rust being a fine example of an outright technical track that Threshold would be proud to produce.

To finish, it’s a worthy piece of music that shows how good some of the technically minded progressive musicians can write at the harder edge of this thing we called ‘prog’.

Check out the band’s website

Release Dates through InsideOut Records: October 16th, 2015 (EU), October 30th, 2015 (US).