“WE DIDN’T SEE A FUTURE BEING IN A BAND!”

After they released 2020’s Rise Radiant into a world in facing the unknown, Caligula’s Horse began to question their existence as a band. However – despite creative uncertainty and line-up changes – the Aussie prog rockers persisted to make their heaviest and most ambitious material. Guitarist Sam Vallen tells Prog about Charcoal Grace’s black heart.

Matt Mills

A picture’s worth a thousand words. It’s a cliché we’ve all heard too many times in our lives. However, when the artwork for the new Caligula’s Horse album, Charcoal Grace, is compared to that of its 2020 predecessor, Rise Radiant, readers will see everything they need to know about the Aussie prog quartet’s last four years. Rise Radiant’s cover was a lavish, colourful painting. Crammed with springtime imagery from deer to flowing water and emerald grass, it was created at a time when, as guitarist Sam Vallen phrases it, the band had “all their ducks in a row”. Then the pandemic happened. Now, Charcoal Grace is jet-black; flora and fauna are replaced by a human face distorted and washing away into nothingness. It’s a pretty surefire sign that some morale…

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Prog Italia (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 147

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