CD review: Human Host – The Halloween Tree

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Human Host

The Halloween Tree

Fall Records

Rating: 4

A band could be easily rated by the talent of its members – at least enough to warrant an oversimplified number to kick-start an album review.

But that criterion would be a simplification itself. I suppose bands could be rated by any number of things – album art, for instance. So really, the number above this article doesn’t mean anything.

It especially doesn’t mean anything for Baltimore-founded group Human Host. The group, led by Mike Apichella, is about as far from the typical four-man band as it gets.

The Halloween Tree, Human Host’s fourth album, is hardly a palette of musical showmanship, and it’s far from pleasant. It’s an electronic blend of simple drumbeat pulses, retro keyboard work and heavy synthesizer improvisation, layered with Apichella’s off-kilter screaming vocals.

Human Host isn’t as much a band as it is a creative conglomeration of producers and artists. Some members make beats for the group, Apichella said. Multiple other members and musicians add various instrumentation to the songs, both in the studio and on stage.

The album itself resembles this complicated production. Human Host’s music comes in three varieties, as Apichella describes – structured drum and keyboard songs, improvised music, and experimental electronic “beats.” You’d wonder how they’d perform any of it live.

“I felt like the only way to literally express my feelings in any way that I possibly [could] was to incorporate elements of theater and physical comedy and all this other stuff, like manipulation of light, visual art, writing, prose poetry,” Apichella said.

When it came to influences, I expected the usual Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead rundown. Instead, Apichella listed rap and R&B artists as some of his biggest influences, looking to artists like Timbaland, Lil‘ Jon and Ludacris for much of his inspiration – especially the “beat” side of Human Host.

Apichella noted his interest in the underlying music and message of rap, which he described as a form of heathenism “no different than ‘70s garage or punk.“

“A lot of people concentrate on [their] lyrics, because there’s sort of a morality that some people think is absent from it,” Apichella said. “People tend to ignore that behind the macho posturing and sadism, there’s music that is extremely creative … really bizarre, strange, eerie psychedelic music. If you take away the vocals, all of the sudden I think a lot of people would really discover that.“

In terms of electronica, Apichella listed groups such as Kraftwerk and the French duo Air, a prominent influence on fellow Human Host member and producer Rick Weaver.

“Out of State” is a combination of a live and in-studio improv sessions, and perhaps most effectively highlights the group’s affection for their improvisational side. Its busy percussion, delay and pure ambience is numbing.

So really, is this just a big mash-up of strained ideas, abstract lyrics and basic electronic beats?

I’d prefer not to call it anything. Give it a listen.

Human Host is on tour in the United States for two months. They will play in Sacramento in September.

Give these tracks a listen:

Out Of State

Bathtub Blast

For fans of:

Nine Inch Nails

Lyrics sidebar:

“Thunder Moth“

Fayta craa zah jahdda corra bahzair

Zola tragg dos attagga-tagga bohlogga-hair

Tonna gor fye bahdda zeeba galoo

Eeva jor laow cron bahdda zeeba tagoo

Jeela bala teega oohlaga fatann

Keena flazook ashahbba – goorendahlhann

Anna hoo dar val korra dahzee

The lips hover between the trees

– Justin T. Ho