Review Summary: With the "Pizza EP", HORSE the band up the sarcastic wit and humor of their previous works to new heights, but also find themselves not doing anything really special. EXCEPT EATING PIZZA, AMIRITE?
HORSE the band apparently really don’t care what people think about them. Half wanting to be taken seriously, and then always wanting to be out there and generally strange, HORSE the band always made fun, catchy, and melodic punk with a synth that gave them a video game aesthetic, and occasionally went on full out Super Mario Bros. Breakdowns. Not too long ago, HORSE decided to go through on a joke and make an entire EP revolving around pizza. Thus, the
Pizza EP was born.
To put it simply, this album is essentially a twenty minute joke. Every song is about pizza or a strange, and at times “scary,” take on it. They remain somewhat close to the sound they forged on
R. Borlax and
The Mechanical Hand, but focusing less on any real breakdowns and moreso on delivering their message: Pizza kicks ass and it will eat you if you don’t eat it first.
“Werepizza“, the longest song here, is actually a very eerie and, if not for the horribly derivative lyrics (it’s a song all about how pizza will f
uck you up), would actually be quite the horror song. While the interlude halfway through the song nearly kills the album, the cries of “Beware or be aware of Pizza” is truly both a smile-inducing and sinister line. Then, after such a downright spine-chilling number, “Pizza Nif” comes in with its heavy reliance on the synths and its (admittedly tiring) want for pizza and shows that a 5 songs EP can have plenty of variety.
The production, however, really doesn’t do much good for HORSE the band here. It’s really quite bad, actually; the guitars sound scrunched in sometimes, and the drums sound hollow. Nathan's vocals are either not loud enough or too present in the mix, and the drums are far too high in the mix for how much they actually contribute to the songs. It’s most apparent in “Anti-Pizza” where its really something of a 4 minute ramble on pizza, and everything starts melding in together by the end of the song.
As a joke album, the “Pizza EP” succeeds. It’s entertaining, and the cover of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song in “T.M.N.T” is one of the coolest HORSE the band songs ever. Other than that, though, none of the tracks here are really that memorable. The barking and growling, while decent, really doesn’t fit the album at all, and kind of kills the humor even moreso than trying to make a 20 minute pizza joke already does. Given a bit more time, the EP could have been a lot better.
Wait, what the hell, it’s an EP by HORSE the band about pizza. What the hell is the point in even trying to review this seriously? If you like HORSE the band, check this out. You’ll probably enjoy it. If you don’t or have a low tolerance for cheesy humor, stay far, far away. It’s certainly an EP where the band just messes around and never means to be taken seriously, and if you take it as that, you’re more likely than not to enjoy it as well.
