Jerry Kingsman and his Model Horses – Year of the Horse
Jerry Kingsman and his Model Horses (aka Vanity Club aka Sal Constantin and a ton of his friends) are an explosion of youth. They have a devil-may-care, je ne sais quoi aura – but their existence is intentional and their ideas are fully realized. Sure, their greatest inspiration may be a Smiths cover called “Heaven Knows I’m Doing Your Mom,” but we’re thankful for low-hanging mom jokes in this case… Their latest album, Year of the Horse, reminds us of simpler times – when creating an album was the most important thing you could do with your time. Jerry & co. built a nine “song” offering, running the gamut between sweaty garage rock, salty surf tones, and full-on skits that make this experience as much performance art as it is an album
The first real song on Year of the Horse is “I Don’t Want To Work,” and it’s dripping with that sardonic, mid-college mindset. Working some shitty part-time job you don’t care about while pursuing a degree you don’t care about is such a specific feeling – hoping your music career takes off so you never have to worry about the future is another (clock it). “I Don’t Want To Work” is an expression of those energies – it’s in the minutia, like noticing (and being annoyed by) the schmutz in your boss’ teeth; not caring about your classes; thinking everyone else (and probably birds) are government psy-0p drones drinking up all the Kool Aid. It’s demonstrated through heavily-reverbed vocals and big, loud guitars, with just as much WAVVES, The Strokes, and Fidlar energy as you could imagine. Stick around for the incredibly passionate guitar solo, it really makes the song.
Elsewhere, “Phone Bill” plays around with super-fuzzed basslines and hyper-effected spoken word verses. This is less a song and more a manifesto… It’s still a song, just not your typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus setup. And while we don’t typically celebrate songs about technology or social media, this one feels less about TikTok feeds and more “I feel more alone / Than anyone should reasonably be.” The neurotic drumbeat and spikes of guitar on “Dale Repeats the 8th Grade (Famous Flying Kites)” are another album highlight, with nihilistic lyrics that match the song’s unbridled energies: “I feel like shit / I’m stuck from ever wanting more / I’m done with it / (I genuinely don’t know what this line is) / Suck my dick.” In true DIY fashion, you just have to love the “I don’t know what I’m even saying” energy from Constantin (as in, Constantin doesn’t know what he sang, and doesn’t care enough to try to remember). Lastly, “Cut Your Hair” (not a Pavement cover, although, I think they’d do a good job *hint hint*) is as heartfelt and sincere as JK&hMH gets – it still jangles with a crispy delivery, but has more of a Best Coast, 50s-inspired ennui in comparison to its aughts-flavored peers.
Lastly, a big part of Year of the Horse is its noisy, performance art freakouts. While “Introducing…” is spun to sound like the intro to a talk show, “Also Sprach Jerry Kingsman” is a Pavement-esque freakout that further introduces the aforementioned “I Don’t Want To Work.” Later on, “Bomb In My Car (mighty taco forgot my nacho buffito and i will NEVER forgive them)” and “Cheese Freak’s Interlude” turn the vocal distortion up to maximum, dousing the song’s true meanings in a noisy Gaussian blur. By album’s end, when you’ve made it through “JERRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYY,” you’ll be half wondering what happened and half wondering when you lost your edge. Hopefully, Jerry’s going to help you find it again.
Year of the Horse is out now – you can find it via bandcamp (embedded below), or, on your favorite streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music or any other option, really.
Categorised in: Album of the Week
This post was written by Nick Sessanna