Looking back at HORSE The Band's 'The Mechanical Hand' for it's 20th Anniversary

Get tickets to see HORSE The Band perform The Mechanical Hand on their 2025 reunion tour

HORSE the Band makes serious music—and has a lot of fun doing it. Sure, they can come off a bit goofy with track titles referencing video games ("The House of Boo") or breaking mid-song to make an obscure declaration about masturbation ("Taken by Vultures"), but at their core, they’re masterful musicians.

HORSE never set out to become the godfathers of what is now belovedly known as “Nintendocore.” By chance, lead vocalist Nathan Wineeke picked up a Korg MS2000 at Guitar Center, and founding member and keyboardist Erik Engstrom embraced its sound before recording their first album, R. Borlax. It was also by chance that Winneke wrote a song about a Mega Man character, Cut Man, which became their classic concert encore closer, “Cutsman”. When hype built around these elements on the album, Winneke jokingly dubbed it “Nintendocore” in an interview—and like it or not, the genre, and their role in creating it, stuck. This is a band you either love with all your heart or absolutely hate. There is no middle ground.

HORSE leaned into this newly established “fun” and “silly” Nintendocore sound when gearing up to record their sophomore album, The Mechanical Hand, released by Combat Records on April 22, 2005. Despite its playfulness, their lyrics still tackled serious subjects like self-image, personal trauma, and philosophy (the album cover and title references Fahrenheit 451). However, there’s a new lightness and poppiness to their double-trudging shredding. This shift is partly attributed to producer Matt Bayles, former keyboardist for Minus the Bear (who also just announced a reunion tour in 2025, celebrating the 20th anniversary of their album Menos el Oso).

For a band that typically lays down synth first, it makes sense to have a keyboardist as a producer to refine that signature Super Mario sound. Songs like “Birdo” and “The House of Boo” play directly into the Nintendo motif, serving as a sacred offering to fans who loved “Cutsman”. Guitarist and founder David Isen leads the fast-paced, heavy instrumentation alongside new members Dashiell "Dash" Arkenstone on bass and Eli Green on drums.

“Birdo” kicks off the album with a sample from The Hobbit animated TV show—“Ahhhh, eggs!”—ominously playing before being abruptly cut off as all hell breaks loose. Drums, guitar, and Winneke belting the song title with an elongated “OOOOOO” introduce you to all the elements you want from a HORSE the Band album: random audio samples, absurd yet hilarious lyrics, classic Nintendo synth, and instrumentation that’s heavy AF. Long before 5th-wave emo bands started coining bizarre and random movie/TV samples, HORSE had already perfected the art. While “Birdo” seems to be about a ridiculous bird from Super Mario Bros. 2 who shoots eggs out of its mouth, its actual meaning is deeply personal. As a child, Winneke’s stepfather would force-feed him eggs and become abusive toward him and his mother when he refused to eat them. This juxtaposition of wackiness masking an underlying earnestness makes HORSE more than just a humorous metalcore band. That depth is why they’ve reached cult status.

We find this raw earnestness in its purest form on track three, “Manateen”, arguably their most personal song to date. Winneke declares, “I feel like I’m becoming a butterfly,” immediately followed by, “That’s me in my dreams / but when I open my eyes / I see I’m a piece of shit.” Backed by ethereal synth and cutting guitar riffs, it’s a song of true self-deprecation. Anyone lucky enough to witness a HORSE show knows this self-deprecation well—it’s palpable. They look like they’re simultaneously in the most pain and having the most fun of their lives. And that’s partly true. Their last mini-tour for the Your Fault EP resulted in Engstrom becoming seriously ill, requiring him to be escorted off a plane in a wheelchair hooked up to an IV. The tour also included two hospital trips for their full-time triangle player, Ed Edge. Yes, they have a full-time touring triangle player. Edge joined around this album’s release and quickly became one of many characters in the HORSE universe.

The Mechanical Hand also brought us some of the first HORSE music videos, “Birdo” and “A Million Exploding Suns”. The “Birdo” video played out like a children's school play—something later allegedly copped by Snow Patrol—while “A Million Exploding Suns” felt like a surreal short film. In it, a duck statue commands Engstrom to type out cryptic instructions found by the other bandmates, who then assemble a Frankenstein-like monster (Winneke) from mannequin limbs and raw meat. If the music didn’t already immerse you in HORSE’s world, the videos served as undeniable VR.

"Heroes Die" is a slow-building instrumental interlude that might be one of the best show openers ever. It begins with a classic marching battalion drum, layered with audio samples of arrows streaming through the air and swords clashing. Then eerie synths creep in, evolving from medieval battle sounds to gunfire and, ultimately, lasers—right as the full band crashes in with a heavy breakdown.

You can’t talk about HORSE without diving into their lore. Their DIY, low-budget tours have led to some ridiculous situations. While recording The Mechanical Hand, this happened: “The band floods three stories of their hotel by knocking the fire sprinkler off the water pipe in a freak piñata accident.” But that’s nothing compared to their Earth Tour, a 13-hour documentary chronicling their 90-day worldwide debauchery after The Mechanical Hand’s release, filmed by their friend Gary LaChance. As they described it on their website:

“Polarizing art-metal weirdos HORSE the Band grow tired of life in the American underground music scene and decide to book and fund a 45-countries-in-90-days, round-the-world tour, all by themselves. Unprecedented in its scope and bravery, it is the most ambitious nonstop tour ever attempted. $60,000 of credit card debt later, hilarity, chaos, and metaphysical crises begin to ensue as the band strays far from the tourist-trodden path into the homes, underground clubs, and hangouts of real and driven people from some of Earth's most exotic locales.”

If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it.

The band itself became part of its own mythology. The Mechanical Hand introduced Lord Gold (Engstrom), the self-proclaimed “Sex God,” in track 12, “Lord Gold Throneroom,” which opens with what sounds like a porn sample before jumping into an all out orgy scene: “Women pleasure men at the wave of his golden hand.” Winneke was later dubbed The General. Isen—possibly in reference to his, uh, anatomy—possibly became His Purple Majesty. Then there’s Big Business, Edge’s nickname, which is definitely a dick reference. With The Mechanical Hand and the introduction of Lord Gold, we see the band transform into mythical characters within their own chaotic universe.

The album closer, "The Black Hole," is a testament to the sheer awesomeness laid down throughout the record. It serves as both a callback to earlier tracks and a self-proclamation of the band’s identity. Winneke belts, “It’s so amazing!” over an uplifting instrumental climax, that fades into a classic piano ballad. But in true HORSE fashion, they couldn’t leave it on a high note—so the final soundbite is an audio sample of Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets heckling the album.

The Mechanical Hand is arguably HORSE’s most popular album, though it was initially met with mixed reviews. I see it as HORSE setting the stage—an invitation into their bizarre, magical world. It’s a triumph of an album that feels timeless. After reviewing what I’ve written, I’m not sure I’ve done them justice in proving they make serious music. But my hope is that, regardless of how deep you dive into their discography, it’s clear HORSE the Band is a force to be reckoned with.