The power of a massive riff and blaring guitars has quietly been pushed to the margins in recent years. Artists like Big Thief, Hozier, Mt. Joy, and Noah Kahan can draw thousands while keeping the volume dialed back and the distortion tucked away. But what the world really needs right now is more loudness.
Enter Los Angeles indie-punk outfit Jacob The Horse, who unleash a turbulent and contagious blast of noise with their new single “The River.” This is one of the rare songs that began with the riff first.
“This is one of the rare songs that started riff-first,” says guitarist and lead vocalist Aviv Rubinstein. “Josh came up with this cool, satanic-sounding groove, and I tried to put words to the way it made me feel, which was anxious but also cathartic.”
The band isn’t shy about acknowledging its influences either.
“It’s our attempt at a Motörhead riff,” adds bassist Mark Desrosiers. “What would Lemmy do? Crank the midrange and don’t overthink it.”
Glide is premiering this fearless rocker (below), a track that channels the heavy psychedelic bewilderment of Roky Erickson alongside the freak-flag genre mashups of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.
On their upcoming album At Least It’s Almost Over (out March 20), Jacob the Horse confronts the rise of modern fascism, wrestles with anxiety, and fires off rallying cries for anarchy and Satan. Anxiety plays a central role in the band’s sound, and that wound-up sense of uncertainty gives their music an urgent blast of release.
“I’ve struggled with anxiety and stress my whole life,” explains lead guitarist Josh Fleury. “I went to doctors about it growing up and they all gave me inconclusive results—probably because I masked it, afraid I’d get in trouble. About six or seven years ago a doctor put me on a mild antidepressant, which honestly didn’t do much. Then about a year ago I was finally properly diagnosed with ADHD, and my psychiatrist explained it like this: ADHD is in the driver’s seat, while depression and anxiety are passengers.”
At Least It’s Almost Over is ultimately an album about disillusionment—about realizing that the people who were supposed to take care of us aren’t taking care of us at all. Jacob the Horse lean into the pastiche of a band that worships Satan, partly because it’s funny and partly because Satan sometimes feels like a better alternative to the direction the world appears to be heading.
“It feels like they’re leaving us to the wolves,” says Rubinstein. “And the wolves are these bad people with bad intentions. It feels like the world is ending. People are betraying us as a community. I can barely express the anger and disappointment I feel at having to live in the dumbest timeline.”
The apocalyptic album art—created by animator and illustrator Jesse James Dean (known for work on Bob’s Burgers, Archer, Squidbillies, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force)—depicts a monstrous lizard man standing atop a pile of skulls, clutching a glowing bloody sword while drinking from a bisected businessman in front of a burning Los Angeles.
Chapman first met Dean at a mutual friend’s bachelor party, where the two quickly bonded as the only dads in attendance. After seeing Dean’s illustration work on social media, beer cans, and shoes, Chapman pitched the idea of having him create the cover art. The band gave just one direction: a giant creature wreaking havoc on a city.
Originally, the monster was drinking from a chalice. But Jacob the Horse wanted more gore—so the chalice became a corpse.
“This entire record is me looking back at our song ‘Dead By 45’ and thinking, ‘You thought we were going to protest our way out of this? You fucking idiot,’” Rubinstein says. “This is a spiteful, angry, depressed record with a purpose. At this point I’m surviving and living the rest of my life out of spite. Best case scenario, we find people who connect with the record—people who are already thinking these things and feel heard. Worst case scenario? We get thrown in prison or killed by our own government. I don’t know how this all ends for our country. Nowhere is it written that America gets a happy ending.”
