Horseshit On Route 66 - The Garden: Review
The Garden
are a difficult to classify experimental two piece music project from California. The Garden's music has morphed between numerous different genres over the years but have always kept a foot in both electronic music and punk rock, with splashes of hardcore worked in throughout.
Review by Lav:
Let me put my cards on the table. I'm a music critic, but I'm also just a girl, and the crush I have on Wyatt and Fletcher when they perform in full clown attire as The Garden, it's embarrassing. Did that cause me to go a little bit too crazy when I saw the duo perform earlier this year? Yes. But it also helped me get excited for this upcoming new record alongside a trio of pretty good singles. All things considered, I think this is at least as good or better than any project the duo has released before even if I can see some avenues for improvement.
I still like the first two singles from this record a LOT. Freight Yard has more reserved vocals than a lot of the other tracks on the record but there is so much personality in the impossibly catchy refrains. It has a pretty inexorable charm that only The Garden can really bring. Orange County Punk Rock Legend was another hit with me and I like it even more now. The weird little vocal flourishes and grinding electronics are off-putting but in the most enticing way, if that makes any sense. It's all wrapped up with the perfect delivery of the titular line in the background to put a little bow on everything.
The highlights don't stop there either. Title track Horseshit On Route 66 dabbles in the sounds of indie music with its almost western-flavored guitar riff. What really sells the song are the totally infectious refrains weaved into it throughout. My favorite song on the record and genuinely one of my favorite Garden songs of all time is What Else Could I Be But A Jester. The totally manic D&B sounds and how catchy everything about the song is just sticks it in my head for hours after every time I hear it. It's so chaotic that even at under two minutes it has numerous distinct phases and dozens of instrumental elements. It's a snarling and unpredictable banger that I love.
I also love Squished Face Slick Pig Living In A Smokey City one of the longest songs on the record and certainly the heaviest. I think the band makes the transition into metal riffs pretty well with the wordy title refrain on the hook unfolding in a smooth and memorable way. I'm not crazy about the spoken word verses but I will say the imagery is plenty vivid enough to save it. I'm also not crazy about the verses on the song Chainsaw The Door where it removes the most fun and bouncy part of the songs instrumental core. Thankfully the hook is much better and yet another one that sticks with me for a while after I hear it.
The record gets off to an okay start with an opening track that is literally about haunted houses being listed on Zillow before transitioning into the snobby but exhilarating OC93. My favorite part of the song is the contrast between the sonic insanity and the direct, almost monotone vocal performance. Puerta De Limosina follows and is much closer to true hardcore with fiery screamed lead vocals and jittery percussion. I certainly with the song was more fleshed out though.
There are really only two songs here I'm not crazy about at all one of which is the closing track At The Campfire. It has a similar unpredictability but unfortunately, I'm not crazy about it. I think the band has done the sample interpolation thing a lot better than they do here given how fucking obnoxious the evil laughter gets. The sweet guitar licks that come out of nowhere to close the track don't really fit in at all and end the record on, ironically enough, a bit of a sour note. X In The Dirt is my least favorite song and it has a lot to do with the mixing. Almost the entirety of the song is spent with one element completely overpowering everything else and it really dulls the impact of the whole thing. Not to mention the drum breakdown in the middle of the song is probably the most cliché thing I've ever heard The Garden do.
Despite a slip up here and there I like Horseshit On Route 66 quite a bit. The unpredictable genre fusing and constant energy injected into every element of these songs make for a thoroughly satisfying experience. If something about The Garden has been causing you to put off a deeper exploration of the band there's no better time to get into them than right now, just know what you're getting into. 7/10
This cover is really basic but does its job. It doesn't have a wow factor or anything that really draws you in since it's just a plain portrait, but it looks fine. The styling and their signature makeup looks good, I just think it could've been elevated a little further to make it more than just a good portrait that you could post on Instagram. 4.5/10
For more music that's difficult to classify check out my review of Teen Suicide's Honeybee Table At The Butterfly Feast here
