High Horse

If beautiful, genre-melding compositions that blur the lines between bluegrass, roots, jazz and chamber music performed by a group of young virtuosi sounds like your thing, High Horse’s eponymously titled debut album delivers the goods. The core band – fiddler Carson McHaney, cellist Karl Henry, guitarist G Rockwell and bassist Noah Harrington – met while attending the Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory. By designating the cello as “second fiddle”, High Horse present a fresh string-band sound with enriched harmonic depth and rhythmic flexibility. ‘Tombstone Territory’ kicks things off in a bluegrass frenzy, which morphs into measures of flying staccato and upswinging grooves. A four-movement suite attests to the band’s facility with folk and contemporary forms ranging from Irish reels and square dance tunes to bluegrass romps and classical material. Special note from the vocal realm: Kat Wallace’s heart-wrenching rendering of ‘Holy Water’ is a bona fide miracle.