On this sixth full-length release, Montreal\u2019s Men I Trust (aka MIT) make a statement by creating a masterpiece without particularly being different or innovative. <\/p>\n
Equus Caballus<\/i> makes no attempt to even remotely hide that MIT are happily comfortable in their soft dreamy pop stylistic bubble that is heavily indebted to eighties music. But even within the very narrow confines of this bubble, this album shows that the band can create music that is absolutely remarkable.<\/p>\n
There is a \u201cgreatest hits\u201d vibe to this record, where every track could be a single; and a killer one at that. The music has the obvious eighties new wave catchiness, but instead of the bombast of synthpop, MIT play this music with an understated fragility that is singular to them.<\/p>\n
For instance, \u201cBillie Toppy,\u201d musically, sounds perilously close to The Cure song \u201cA Forest,\u201d if it were remade in the present time. But with the band\u2019s gentle spin on the jagged guitars and biting rhythm section\u2014which they play with total conviction\u2014they quite convincingly make what could have been a derivative number into a modern post-punk song that only they can create. <\/p>\n
Even while they stick steadfastly to their sound, MIT still manage to bring the listener into weird netherworlds, as they do on \u201cThe Better Half,\u201d where gnarly synths, muted guitar chords, and suffocating drums along with some distorted vocal parts transport you to a universe much darker and sinister than, for instance, a song like \u201cAnother Stone,\u201d which is just so sweet, warm, and heavenly. <\/p>\n
The band plays aspects of smooth jazz (\u201cRing Of Past\u201d), hair-metal (\u201cCarried Away\u201d), eighties stadium rock (\u201cTo Ease You\u201d), and sophistopop (\u201cHard To See\u201d) among a host of musical influences with mouse-like quietness and lion-like pride, with frontwoman Emmanuelle “Emma” Proulx\u2019s feathery vocals (deserving a special shout-out of its own) that gently carries you into a very unique musical space that is untethered from the musical influence of the songs she is singing.<\/p>\n
Very few albums have pulled off what MIT have, on Equus Caballus<\/i>\u2026 while proudly showing off their influences, they are still staunchly original.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":35332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[11107],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-47223","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-men-i-trust","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47223"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}