As concept albums go this is, quite possibly, one of the best I’ve heard; an album of hope told through the eyes of six-legged robotic horses. These horses are convinced that they’re real horses but they’re trapped in a war between good and evil and continually striving to find out the truth about their existance. This is no joke and for all it’s far-fetchedness it’s an album that brims with hope, love and happiness all wrapped up in some of the most ambitious music that you could possibly want to hear.
The first thing that strikes you is Chris Eaton’s warbling falsetto. Not always easy listening, the delivery is unsettling and yet uplifting. As he sings the lyrics flow out of your speakers as words do out of a good book, when he sings “My children by joyful” all you can do is feel uplifted and want to joy in the chorus of good cheers. This is all augmented by the ambitious musical accompaniment. There’s guitars, drums, trumpets and violins all thrown together in this melting pot whose stock is based on country and Americana. There’s a strong feeling of traditional music at the base of everything Rock Plaza Central do, but they’ve twisted and turned it into something altogether different. Sure there’s violins and acoustic guitars that may make the beginning of a song like Anthem For The Already Defeated sound like a glorified country song, but it feels slightly disassembled, the clunky piano at the end bringing to mind Tom Waits. The end of Are We Not Horses? has Easton’s voice screaming the words “And if we’re not horses are we men?” which then segues into the beautiful When We Go, How We Go (Part I) that aches with guitars and violins, a simple folk-tinged song that deals with death but in such a way that you can do nothing but feel uplifted.
This is such an ambitious record that really it shouldn’t work. But it does. This is just down to the fact that they believe in what they’re singing and producing. Whilst the story might be a bit out there, the lyrics and subject matter of the songs are all very real and close to home. Birth, love and death are the most important things in life and listening to an album like this just reaffirms it. It’s full of hope and, in this day and age, that’s something we need all the more of.
Links
Rock Plaza Central [official site] [myspace]
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Nice to see you big this one up, it seemed to fall under the radar a bit but it’s a weird little gem. There is a little of the Flaming Lips’ cosmic wonder, some of the Polyphonic Spree’s barbed evangelism, and a little of Calexico’s rust and dust choked imagery. Like Modest Mouse, Rock Plaza Central also look to Tom Waits as a reference point, but with less of Isaac Brock’s affectation. But ‘Are We Not Horses?’ is more than a sum of any recognisable influences, an album with its own tangible mini-world, the forsaken border country depicted in the novels of Cormac McCarthy, all Mexican funeral marches and mescal-addled campfire storytelling. For all the contrivance and histrionics though, it is an album of intimate folk and beautiful musicianship – replete with horns, violin, piano and jazzy percussion that scuttles like a scorpian. Love it.