In talking about Horsefly, the finally released 1996 album that was set to make the career of Chapel Hill’s Capsize 7 until the band was dropped from Caroline Records, former front man Joe Taylor told me that parts of the record sound dated to him.
For the life of me, I can’t hear them. Sure, this is straight-up ‘90s indie rock, chock full of grungy guitar and slacker nihilism. But the album comes from such a ferocious, forward-thinking place that it’s still incredibly fresh.
The band’s “Johnny Falcon” who “turns ordinary metal into gold records for his soul” over a jangly piece of aggressive guitar rock is a more refined version of the “St. Jimmy” that was at the center of Green Day’s 2004 smash hit American Idiot.
Capize 7
Horsefly
dive verdict: 4 of 5 stars
Such instances show Capsize 7 to have been ahead of the curve with the instrumental chops to bring such ideas to fruition.
That talent is on display in instrumental track “Loggerhead Odyssey.” Building from a simple and beautiful beginning of intertwined picking, the band modulates and contorts its guitar tones, ramping up the intensity into a raging and cathartic climax. It’s some of the most impressive ‘90s N.C. music I’ve heard in my retrospective takes.
In songwriting, Taylor, who now fronts local duo Blag’ard, crafts venomously bitter thoughts into scathing verses that match the music’s fervor.
“Did you get real far, or did you break up?/Did you try and never make it?” he mockingly spits in the opening “Generator,” eviscerating the idea of musical success with fiery cynicism.
