Horse Jumper of Love Disaster Trick

Looking back can often feel like a fruitless endeavor, if only because there is fear in bringing back the things we left behind. For Dimitri Giannopoulos, Horse Jumper of Love frontperson, it was a necessity. Amid unearthing old material for what became Disaster Trick, the Boston slowcore trio's fifth album, Giannopoulos simultaneously approached his past with a new gaze, acknowledging that there is growth in admitting where he might've failed. Little did he expect that considering a different way of thinking would provide the clarity he sought.

There are traces of Giannopoulos' self-destructive behavior throughout the album's occasionally direct but often oblique reflections. But most striking is the music itself, which, for a little over a decade, has evolved from minimal lo-fi to a full-fledged, forceful assault. “A man came back/with nothing to show up for it,” he sets the scene on Wink, opening up to a potential bad deed as a thorny bed of guitars set a dark, frigid atmosphere. Every moment in Disaster Trick feels consequential, from the grief that consumes him on the doom-laden Snow Angel, one of the band's most striking performances to date, to his futile search for spirituality on Lip Reader. But the stillness present in their past work remains on Curtain, which slowly unfurls with gliding, open-tuned arrangements coalescing into a payoff that, rightfully, never arrives. Having enlisted the likes of Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman and MJ Lenderman to collaborate on these tracks may provide fuller scope, but they only help accentuate the trio's sharp, heavier contrasts.

While listening to Disaster Trick, there is a sense that Giannopoulos intentionally distances himself, lingering in his thoughts. Given the traces of emotion he lays out throughout, they curiously let us in in mysterious ways. Credit also goes to the less measured and more textural production, which, unintentionally, allows the songs to become more alluring and inviting. Such tangents melding together make perfect sense for anyone familiar with Horse Jumper of Love's determined and consistent output. But for those uninitiated to the band, they've arrived at a crucial and special time in their story.