Caligula's Horse - Bristol Review

May has been an extremely busy month. There has not been a weekend where I have not travelled away for at least one concert and, in truth, I am starting to feel it! It is not as easy as it was to get on the train for multiple weekends in a row to see bands live - but I still enjoy it. I am quite glad to have a bit of a break in June, though, despite having some local shows to look forward to, as, following last night in Bristol, I am not spending the night away again now until early July. I will certainly enjoy catching up on some sleep over the coming weekends - but May has been full of excellent shows, with lots of 'firsts' including shows by The Black Crowes and Bruce Dickinson as a solo artist. Yesterday's trip to Bristol was also for a 'first', as I boarded the Thekla in the evening to catch the Australian progressive metal four-piece Caligula's Horse on their latest European tour. I had been familiar with Caligula's Horse in name-only until earlier this year, but I decided to take the plunge with the release of their sixth album Charcoal Grace (which I reviewed here) back in January. I have been slowly branching out when it comes to prog metal in recent years - and I have more of an appreciation for the modern take on the sound now than I did previously. I think TesseracT were the band which helped me to bridge the gap somewhat - but Caligula's Horse have enough classic-sounding prog metal in their sound thanks to the soaring guitar leads of Sam Vallen to draw me in. I have listened to Charcoal Grace quite a bit this year, and have also dipped my toe into both 2015's Bloom and 2020's Rise Radiant, but I am still certainly no Caligula's Horse expert. There are still three of the band's albums I am yet to experience, some of which seem quite hard to find physical copies of, but when I saw that they were playing in Bristol as part of their latest European tour the trip seemed like a bit of a no-brainer - especially as the tickets were under £20. It is rare that a gig is less than £20 these days and I knew that I would still have a good time at the show despite not being fully versed in the band's catalogue. I always enjoy going to the Thekla, too. Whilst I imagine the views would be pretty awful from further back by the bar, the sound and atmosphere when stood closer to the stage has always been excellent in my experience. It had been a while since I had last boarded the Thekla, too, so it was nice to return - and there were plenty of others who clearly fancied a Thursday night out with Caligula's Horse, as the venue was pretty much full throughout I would say. It was certainly packed down by the front of the stage and it was clear from the off that the band have some very dedicated fans - as some were very intense in their enjoyment of the show, particularly given that Caligula's Horse are certainly not the heaviest of bands.

Before the main event, though, there were two support acts to warm the crowd up. Up first was the American three-piece Four Stroke Baron - a band whom I had heard of thanks to Pete Pardo recently reviewing their latest album Data Diamond on the Sea of Tranquility YouTube channel. Given his comments about the album I expected the band to be weirder than they ended up being, but I think that it is fair to say that the band are not that conventional. Disappointingly, though, a lot of the band's sound relied on a backing track. In fairness that could sometimes be said about Caligula's Horse given that they do not have a keyboard player and are essentially a guitarist down compared to their historic configuration, but Caligula's Horse are driven by Vallen's riffing primarily and the synths are generally background ambiance - whereas with Four Stroke Baron there was a lot of emphasis on pre-recorded synths and even synth bass which sometimes left the band's actual bass player standing around not doing anything. Despite some techy riffing at times, much of the riffing was not exactly that memorable. I was expecting something much more chaotic, but it seems that the band's main quirks come from their use of synths and also plenty of strange and sometimes quite obnoxious vocal effects. The singing was hard on the ears sometimes thanks to these effects, and this sound was occasionally doubled down on due to the use of some talk box guitar melodies. My main issue with the band overall, though, is that nothing really stuck with me. None of the vocal or guitar melodies were especially memorable and thinking back to their set now there are no melodies at all which I can recall. The strange vocal effects certainly did not help on that front, and likely cloaked any potentially memorable melodies in layers of processed sounds, but I also wonder if Four Stroke Baron are one of those bands who just enjoy sounding weird and off-kilter for its own sake - rather than actually doing something memorable songwriting-wise. I think it is fair to say that Four Stroke Baron are not for me, then, and I was pretty glad when their set came to an end.

The German three-piece The Hirsch Effekt followed and, whilst they are not the sort of band I would sit and listen to at home, I generally enjoyed their genre-bending and pretty heavy set. There was a lot more variety to be found here than there had been in the previous set - and much of this came from the interplay between Nils Wittrock (vocals/guitar) and Ilja John Lappin (vocals/bass guitar). Some of Wittrock's guitar playing was jaw-dropping and Lappin was also a busy bass player - generally doing more than just traditional rhythm-keeping to allow Wittrock to go off on one. Vocally, though, I thought the band were a bit weak. The heavier sections when the two of them screamed sounded pretty strong - but I did not think that either had particularly tuneful or strong clean voices. This did stop the band from really grabbing me, but many of the instrumental passages were impressive - again particularly those which were faster and heavier as these really allowed the two instrumentalists to go crazy. The speed of the guitar playing during the chaotic and frantic closing song was unlike anything I had seen before really - so the band certainly need to get some credit for originality. Despite finding the band's set a lot more enjoyable than Four Stroke Baron's, though, I do get the impression again with The Hirsch Effekt that there is likely an element of experimentation for its own sake. To me, a carefully crafted and original core sound is always going to beat a chaotic melting pot of different sounds in an attempt to be 'out there' and original - but at least The Hirsch Effekt's songs were generally more memorable musically, largely thanks to the guitar playing, than what came before. In fairness I think I am likely in a minority in thinking so - as the band received a pretty strong reception throughout their set, particularly as it progressed. There seemed to be a few fans in attendance and there was a lot more warmth directed their way than Four Stroke Baron had received previously. I certainly enjoyed The Hirsch Effekt's set a lot more but, as I said before, I cannot ever see myself sitting down at home and listening to this band's wide-ranging music.

After two so-so support acts, then, I was glad when the lights went down later and Caligula's Horse took to the stage. For the next 90 minutes or so the band delivered a strong 12-song set which was packed with lots of memorable prog metal anthems - which took in their four most-recent albums and particularly focused on Charcoal Grace. The album's opening two songs got the set underway, with Vallen nailing the soaring opening guitar lead of the lengthy The World Breathes with Me before frontman Jim Grey took to the stage and showcased that he could pull off his various melodic vocal deliveries live - with the crowd helping him out during the song's chorus. As a frontman, though, he did grate on me a bit after a while. He was funny sometimes, but he clearly loves the spotlight - and some of his between-song banter was a bit 'look at me', which did get a bit tedious. That being said, though, as a singer he was flawless. The punchier Golem showcased his grittier side somewhat, with the crowd jumping during the heavy main riff, whilst drummer Josh Griffin laid down plenty of intricate grooves. After this opening of new cuts, the set then moved back to Bloom and then moved forward in time - taking in each album which followed. The first two songs of Bloom were next then, the mellow title track and the driving Marigold, which again featured a lot of singing during the drawn-out chorus. The highlights of the set for me, though, were the two songs played from 2017's In Contact. I have not been able to track down a copy of the album on CD yet, so was unfamiliar with the two songs played, but they really impressed. They were both some of the heaviest and upbeat moments of the set, with some excellent guitar playing from Vallen throughout. It is certainly an album which I need to hear, but it seems to be out of print sadly - and no-one seems to be looking to offload their CD copies on eBay or Discogs. I am sure I will get hold of it one day, but Dream the Dead in particular really impressed - with less of the band's usual atmospheric sound and more weight overall. This punchier sound was then retained during three songs from the more straight ahead Rise Radiant - with Slow Violence perhaps being the pick of the bunch. Rise Radiant is the band's least progressive album overall and there was a big focus on melody instead - with the chorus to Slow Violence perhaps being the band's best yet. It was sung pretty loudly by the crowd, as was Oceanrise which followed, before the band moved back to the modern day to close out the main set with the relatively heavy The Stormchaser and the epic Mute. Mute was another overall highlight for me, with Grey's opening vocals really setting the tone and Vallen's lengthy closing guitar solo perhaps the evening's best guitar moment overall. The curfew was fast approaching at this point, but the cheering brought the band back out for one more - and they powered through another pretty heavy track overall in Daughter of the Mountain which brought a memorable and high-octane set to a powerful close. The setlist was:

The World Breathes with Me

Golem

Bloom

Marigold

Dream the Dead

The Hands Are the Hardest

The Tempest

Slow Violence

Oceanrise

The Stormchaser

Mute

-

Daughter of the Mountain

Despite the strange support bands, which probably suggests that I am pretty out of touch with what is generally considered to be prog metal these days, I enjoyed my time with Caligula's Horse in Bristol. It was great to see a band like Caligula's Horse attract such a decent-sized crowd on a weeknight and the atmosphere was great throughout. I have really enjoyed my journey with the band over the past few months and I hope that it continues - as they have a great core sound which I am looking forward to delving even deeper into.