When Caligula’s Horse released their debut LPMoments From Ephemeral Cityin April 2011, they were an unknown quantity. Not only was the band yet to play a gig, but the project had been in existence for just three or four months.
Initially a union between guitarist/producer Sam Vallen and vocalist Jim Grey, the group’s expansion into a fully fledged five-piece was showcased on a second LP, The Tide, The Thief & River’s End, which arrived in October 2013.
River’s End was a complex, sinister concept album, which garnered international recognition for the Brisbane alt-prog outfit. In recent months, Caligula’s Horse have played alongside the likes of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Opeth and The Ocean, and they’re now ready to unleash album number three, Bloom. Vallen and Grey remain the driving creative forces, and this time around they looked to brighten their stylistic outlook.
“Sam and I have a really specific approach,” says Grey. “We wanted to have a very specific vision for what the band was going to do next and what kind of sound we were going to put together. So we looked at what were the previous album’s weaknesses or what we could do differently from that album. River’s End, just because it was a concept album, it was quite dark; it ended up quite dark-sounding, and we wanted to take a step forward from that. We wanted to be part of something that was a little more to do with sharing positivity and being part of a positive change.”
Along with significantly boosting the band’s profile, River’s End was hailed as an accomplished artistic statement. In spite of this, Caligula’s Horse felt no compulsion to create something in the same vein.
“I don’t particularly want to dwell on things that we’ve already done,” Grey says. “That’s not to say that we’re going to be bizarrely chopping and changing and like, ‘Next album’s just nothing but saxophones.’ We’re just writing the music that reflects where we’re at right now. I feel that this time around there’s an opportunity to step into a completely different world and meet new people, as well as pleasing people that are already fans. I think it’s got something for everyone.”
Caligula’s Horse haven’t abandoned the integration of progressive metal and classic rock that gained them attention in the first place, but Bloom contains gentler textures and ruminative moods, evoking thoughts of A Perfect Circle, The Smashing Pumpkins and Foo Fighters.
“When we were writing one of the singles, Sam and I deliberately sat and listened to a whole bunch of Coldplay for a while,” Grey says. “Those guys write amazing choruses and really nice textured softer music, and we were going for that approach for one of these tracks. That was pretty much all we listened to for that week.”
Despite its brooding atmosphere and increased accessibility, Bloom still contains moments of metallic heft and technical prowess. As Grey explains, the band members’ wide and varied influences are what produce the Caligula’s Horse signature.
“Sam’s a big fan of stuff like Steely Dan, I studied classical and jazz voice as well – all of this stuff that we’ve been working on and performing over all the years is pretty well set in our minds. So if we take an approach, say for example on the song ‘Rust’, which is probably the most straightforward heavy song on the disc, it’s never going to come out sounding like Metallica. But we’ll take the approach, ‘Yeah, we’re going to write this heavy thing, but it’s always going to have those parts of us that are so quintessentially Caligula’s Horse attached,’ because that’s what we do without thinking.”
Bloom byCaligula’sHorse isout Friday October 16 through InsideOut. They support Tesseract at the Factory Theatre on Thursday October 15.
