"Seriously this is our best album ever. People actually like this album the first time they hear it instead of 7 months after a CD-R of it has been on the floor of their friend's car. This album has a Game Boy, bears, crickets, a crying woman, cheerleaders, rape, horrifying birth, mental devastation, and sweet, natural death, and the best art ever which is an actual 8 foot long wood carving/painting. And it's serious. Every single second of it is serious and passionate to us, OK? Maybe...the joke's on you. "

Then I listened to the album, and it struck my as being evident that Horse the band has gone from delightfully eccentric and silly to what, at this point, I can only perceive as insanity. ("Their youtube videos":http://www.youtube.com/user/horsetheband1000000 taped during the album's recording should have been fair enough warning.)

Granted, the album is musically on par with their previous efforts- they can still change time signature easier than flipping a light switch, and play oddtime riffs without you even noticing; their songwriting ability overall remains exceptional. However, continuing the trajectory from the Pizza EP, everything is still a joke- and more than ever with their latest album.

The track "Crickets" is a minute-long interlude of cliched spoken-word that I imagine was hard to deliver without laughing. Two tracks before that was "The Beach" which is a woman sobbing over a background of seagulls and synthesized sounds of waves crashing. "Sex Raptor" is an overwhelmingly 80s disco-influenced New-Wave dance song. New-Wavecore.

_A Natural Death_ goes over the edge, but by doing so they also explore some new territory that almost feels in spite of all labels previously applied to them. Even though their use of an actual Gameboy may encourage the designation of Nintendocore, most of the album suggests they have moved far beyond any notion of simply being a hardcore band with the added gimmick of a synth player.Check it out, in stores the 28th.