The great Baltimore experimental indie rock combo Horse Lords are back with a new album, Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive!, which will be out June 12 via RVNG Intl. It’s their first album in four years and on it guitarist Owen Gardner, bassist Max Eilbacher, drummer Sam Haberman, and alto saxophonist / percussionist Andrew Bernstein are augmented by bass clarinetist Madison Greenstone, trombonist Weston Olencki, and for the first time in the band’s history there are vocals, via Nina Guo and Evelyn Saylor.
“We like the idea of art as a tool for changing your perspective, being able to rotate ideas and see/hear/feel them from a different vantage point,” say Horse Lords, whose members these days are spread around different cities. They remain just as knotty as ever, as you can hear on “Eureka 378-B” and “Brain of the Firm” which are the first two tracks on the album. Watch a video featuring both below.
Horse Lords will be on tour in July starting at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and including stops in Minneapolis, State College, Buffalo, Los Angeles and more. All dates are listed below.
Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive!:
1. Eureka 378-B
2. Brain of the Firm
3. Rotation I
4. Playing and Reality
5. Rotation II
6. First Galactic Utopia
7. Rotation III
8. Before the Law
9. After the Last Sky
10. A City Yet to Come
11. Second Galactic Utopia
12. Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive!
Horse Lords 2026 Tour Dates
Fri. May 22 – Gent, BE @ Viernulvier
Sat. May 23 – Brussels, BE @ Nuits Botanique
Sat. May 30 – Bologna, IT @ Angelica Festival
Sun. May 31 – Turin, IT @ Jazz Is Dead
Fri. June 19 – Sat. June 20 – Kongsberg, NO @ Motvind Festival
Thu. July 9 – Fri. July 10 – Winnipeg, CA @ Winnipeg Folk Festival
Sat. July 11 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Cedar
Sun. July 12 – Madison, WI @ Art Lit Lab
Mon. July 13 – Rock Island, IL @ Rozz Tox
Tue. July 14 – Yellow Springs, OH @ Foundry Theatre
Wed. July 15 – State College, PA @ Manny’s
Thu. July 16 – Buffalo, NY @ Torn Space Theatre
Fri. July 17 – Sat. July 18 – Guelph, ON @ Hillside Festival
Sun. July 19 – Chatham, NY @ PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance
Sat. July 25 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Getty Center
Wed. Aug. 1 – Tasov, CZ @ Beseda Festival
Thu. Aug. 6 – Sat. Aug. 8 – Haldern, DE @ Haldern Pop Festival
Tue. Nov. 3 – Aarhus, DK @ VoxHall
Wed. Nov. 4 – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen
Thu. Nov. 5 – Stockholm, SE @ Hus 7
Sat. Nov. 7 – Hamburg, DE @ MS Stubnitz
Mon. Nov. 9 – Paris, FR @ Instants Chavirés
Wed. Nov. 11 – London, UK @ ICA
Sun. Nov. 15 – Lille, FR @ L’Aéronef
Wed. Nov. 18 – Berlin, DE @ Silent Green
Thu. Nov. 19 – Warsaw, PL @ Pardon To Tu