Incorporating Nintendo sounds into hardcore music appears ridiculously impossible.
Sounds from Nintendo games have happy, funky little beats that entertain even the most advanced adolescent, whereas hardcore contains grunts and intense yelling over aggressive breakdowns.
The unusual combination is in great supply on Lake Forest-based band HORSE the Band’s release, “A Natural Death.”
Dubbing its musical concoction “Nintendocore,” HORSE the Band gives hardcore a new and quite unusual form leaving out its, ahem, core elements – seriousness mixed with hostility.
Songs such as “Beach,” which in its entirety contains sounds of a girl sobbing, ocean waves crashing, various sea birds and a slow melody in the background that reminded me of “The Legend of Zelda,” makes the listener think “Wow – they have to be joking.”
Instrumentals such as “Beach” aren’t sparse on “A Natural Death.” Other strange, filler-type songs include “Crickets,” a track with – you guessed it – crickets and a spoken bit of what sounds like a poetry recital in praise of the insect.
Although not an instrumental, “Sex Raptor” is another of many odd tracks on the album. The beginning is similar to Van Halen’s “Jump” because of its use of a synthesizer, but once the vocals begin, the song seems more like something David Lee Roth would sing while strung out on drugs.
The ever-popular ridiculously long song title is put to use on the track “I Think We Are Both Suffering From the Same Crushing Metalphyiscal Crisis,” and the beginning of the song is slightly distorted with vocalist Nathan Winneke screaming one-lined words containing the suffix -ate, such as “activate” and “initiate.”
Later in the song, after a lengthy transition to “Mario Bros.” sounds, the first indication of the album being remotely related to hardcore music occurs with a breakdown before its end.
The upside to “A Natural Death” is that it has a peculiarly diverse arrangement of tracks that are anything but boring, however they may have you asking, “What the??”
Experimental-sounding albums aren’t quite my thing, and I can hardly picture myself listening to “A Natural Death” on a regular basis, but if you’re looking for something refreshingly funny, you’ve definitely found it.
However, I suppose the album could serve a purpose, like providing a soundtrack for a sequel of the movie “Grandma’s Boy” – the gamers would definitely dig the Nintendo sound effects.
The best recommendation is to get your hands on some mushrooms and treat the album as if it were Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon;” you should definitely have one bizarre experience.
