Ghostkeeper

'Horse Chief! War Thief!' (album stream)

BY Alex HudsonPublished Mar 11, 2013

Quirky Calgary-based roots-rock quartet Ghostkeeper are back. Following 2010's self-titled LP, the band will release Horse Chief! War Thief! on March 19 through Saved By Vinyl. Before the album arrives in stores, you can listen to it in its entirety on Exclaim.ca.

The album once again features the dual vocals of Sarah Houle and Shane Ghostkeeper, along with backing from multi-instrumentalist Ian Jarvis and producer Jay Crocker. It was recorded in analogue at the Old Confidence Lodge in Riverport, NS, and stylistic influences include rock'n'roll, noise, chant, drone, metal and psychedelia. The songs range from the distorted charge of "The Indians" to the shape-shifting riffs of "Luella" to the bluesy funkiness of "Six."

A press release notes that this is not a concept album despite containing myths, legends and narratives. The announcement notes, "Horse Chief! War Thief! is very much an album, less a collection of singles. The vast aural textures and atmospheric synths create a sculptural world inhabited by elemental rock songs and strange tales. This is Ghostkeeper in full stride, ferocious art rock conjurors in a heavy metal parking lot."

Listen to the 10-song collection below. We'll leave you with this enigmatic story that was included in the press release for the album:

The one great and fierce Horse Chief! War Thief! Sorcerer and leader of the debaucherous, war crazy, and all consuming band of phantom horses. As living horses they were raised and trained by the most violent of warriors, they witnessed and conspired to the most horrific acts. When their masters betrayed them to their deaths, they were unwilling to leave this earth peacefully. They returned as gigantic spirits with explosive vengeance, stampeding across the land, swallowing anything and everything in their path.

If you were consumed by Horse Chief! War Thief! you wouldn't be faced with death but would find yourself a fish out of water. The images before your eyes would wobble and warp as you collapse into momentary abyss. On the other side of this void lies a universe of the unimaginable. Shape shifts? Time travels? Baffling encounters. A sort of journey which would not end until the great Chief and his band won their fill of spoils, and you were spit up somewhere (someone), at the foot of Horse Chief War! Thief's portal gates.

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