BAND OF HORSES

BREAKING SAD

Band of Horses take another resonant ride on the melancholy side

By: MATT ASHARE |  

Published: October 3, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com/list/music-burg/

Band of Horses, Mirage Rock (Columbia)

BRINDELL'S BOYS: Band of Horses in their latest incarnation

Reliably sturdy, emotionally earnest, often nearly meditative mid-tempo Americana in the vein of Neil Young and Crazy Horse are some of the qualities that have characterized Band of Horses since 2004, when Ben Bridwell emerged from behind the drums of Seattle slo-core specialists Clarissa's Weird to front the group. But, while it wouldn't be quite right to suggest that Bridwell's overly sober, by reputation the thick-bearded singer-songwriter is certainly more somber than, say, playful.

       So it feels like it must be a sign of something – perhaps a loaded, coded message to his many minions — that Bridwell settled on a cleverly puckish title for Band of Horses' fourth album, their second since moving to the big leagues of Columbia Records and earning a Grammy nomination with 2010's Infinite Arms. Say it real fast three or four times in a row, and Mirage Rock begins to sound an awful lot like "garage rock," a style/genre that, like indie-rock, Bridwell has largely relinquished as Band of Horses have found footing somewhere in the general vicinity of what used to be called the mainstream.

       Swapping saddles isn't exactly new to Bridwell. The South Carolina native quickly became the only remaining founder of the original Band of Horses foursome. And, at this point, former members outnumber the current five-piece — Bridwell, keyboardist Ryan Monroe, guitarist Tyler Ramsey, bassist Bill Reynolds, and drummer Creighton Barrett — by a full two-to-one ratio.

       That said, Band of Horses have embodied a bedrock of consistency, even as various players have come and gone, in large part because Bridwell's distinctively haunting yet hearty falsetto, whether drenched in reverb or supported by spot-on harmonies, has remained so glaringly bare of artifice. And, even as his songwriting has evolved to incorporate more rootsy arrangements, churn-and-burn Crazy Horse guitars are still very much an elemental part of Bridwell's Band of Horses vision.

Band of Horses, Mirage Rock (Columbia)

      If "Infinite Arms" marked Bridwell's return to his native south (it was mostly recorded in North Carolina), then Mirage Rock signals a shift toward a rather eclectic vision of classic rock, as well as a determined attempt to leave the limitations of the garage behind without losing the illusion of grassroots intimacy. Rather than taking over the reigns of production, as the band did on Infinite Arms, they brought on a legend, Glyn Johns, whose considerable resume includes classics by the Who, the Stones, and Clapton, although it's probably more relevant that he also helped the Eagles find their country-rock footing in the early-‘70s, and did something similar for Ryan Adams just last year on Ashes & Fire.

       Johns has a well-tested talent for honing hooks, clarifying choruses, and subtly sharpening melodies that lends a kind of refined rawness to a recording. His deft touch is apparent from the first guitar-bursts on Mirage Rock. With drums pounding and powerchords roaring, Bridwell begins on a high note, crooning wordlessly "Awoo, woo" in an almost celebratory falsetto. The song's title, "Knock Knock," suggests there's a punchline coming, but it's not of the comic variety. "So, say it to me/Say it to my face/There's no time to be deserved or safe," Bridwell sings, as if for the first time in a long time he really is in a hurry to get somewhere. That place is a rock-solid chorus that finds him "knocking" over and over again on some unspecified door, an image that suggests he's pushing hard toward a creative breakthrough of some kind.

       After a chaotic intro, the next track, "How To Live," settles into a more measured groove, as big, ringing guitars create an anthemic atmosphere for a little world-weary introspection. "I really don't have to suffer/I still do it anyway/I'm a diamond in the rough/Or a dirt clod in the clay," Bridwell reflects in what might be the disc's most telling line: he may be a major player on a major label with a major producer, but Bridwell's comfort zone, as song titles like "Everything's Gonna Be Undone" and "Heartbreak on the 101" suggest, is still minor-key melancholy, unraveling relationships, and a kind of looming quotidian sadness. He revels in everyday details of decay: "There's no street lamps/Only three buildings/And one of them's vacant," he intones on the largely acoustic "Slow Cruel Hands of Time," an airy reverie that find him, "Back in my yard, where everything's just dull."

       With its jangly guitars, each chord drawn out into pretty arpeggios, and enigmatic imagery ("Sky is in the yard/Street cotton candy in the fall"), "Slow Cruel Hands of Time" is just one of several tracks here that owe a debt to R.E.M's reinvention of "Southern" rock. In that sense, Band of Horses are in the right hands with Johns at the board. He's not just familiar with the three-part Crosby, Stills and Nash harmonies that color the undulating, fingerpicked "Shut-in Tourist," the mellow "Horse With No Name" tones of "Dumpster World," and the bluegrass-inflections of the rather Dylanesque "Everything's Gonna Be Undone," he's basically on a first-name basis with all of them.

       Mirage Rock does its best to split the difference between grungy hard-rockers, like the softly searing "Feud," with its "I need you to fail" refrain, and the straight-up Bakersfield country discomfort of "Long Vows," a Gram Parsons-style ballad that begins with a "Hello Darlin'," and ends on a meaner note: "No one's gonna show you the way/When it gets cold/You can find yourself baby/Back in the hole from which you came/And everything will fall into place." If, at times, that makes for an album that's more an amalgam of styles than a coherent artistic statement, at least Mirage Rock has one thing holding it all together: an alluringly pensive moodiness bordering on both beauty and despair. As Bridwell, at his most unadorned, put it in "Heartbreak on the 101," "You leave me more damaged every day/You took my entire world and threw it all away."