Horseback is Jenks Miller, who supplies a gloomy, blues-mantra guitar that sent me digging out my Loren MazzaCaine Connors albums for comparison. The first three cuts—“Invokation” [sic], “Tyrant Symmetry” and “The Invisible Mountain” sport both a churning, slow-moving lead from him and the occasional melodic bridge or solo, but with the latter very tightly matched to the former. Pay close attention and you might miss the way they weave in and out of each other.

On the last track, “Hatecloud Dissolving into Nothing”, the drums of John Crouch and second guitar of Scott Endres drop away entirely and allows Miller to overdub himself multiple times, both electrically and acoustically. On all tracks, Miller also vocalizes—a better word than “sings”, since what comes out sounds like the crackle of cooling charcoal struggling to form words. (Dig out the lyrics in the liner notes or you won’t have a chance in hell of understanding what he’s rasping about.)

Miller gets around, apparently. He drums for Un Dex Trois and Year of the Pig, and plays guitar for Mount Moriah, but as Horseback he sounds like none of those bands put together. This is a good thing.