This Is an E.P. (Southern Love)
Like Chris Eaton of Rock Central Plaza, the Austin-bred Horse Operas! unravels dark, weary narratives – occasionally about horses – through a barrage of folk idioms that blends roots-rock with back-porch blues. The nostalgic longing and simple truths found in the lyricism works well within the rustic scenery and stripped-down aesthetic. Let’s hope an LP follows.
Travis and Josh are heading out to Iowa today to finish up recordings for Horse Operas follow up LP. A new song is up for your listening pleasure on myspace.
The second CD will be available a little later this year.
Additionally, all prices on CD’s have been dropped several $’s!
We’re back from Georgia. Thanks to the Flagpole in Athens for the great write up.
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Athens-based duo of Paul Stuffel and Jason McClellan, the guys behind Gutshot and Thirsty, play country and western, but rarely to they play them both at the same time.
More specifically, the type of low-country dirges they sing alternate musically between the murder-ballad-filled, heat-oppressed climes of Alabama and Mississippi and the lonesome, despair-ridden emptiness of the American Southwest. Although the style is most famously associated with folks like Doc Boggs and Jimmie Rodgers, Gutshot and Thirsty is much more in the genre of revisionaries like Jason Molina and the pre-fame Will Oldham.
Opening track “Get A Gun” is a spooky, Western instrumental that sets the stage for what’s to come next. With lyrics about devils, pistols and angels “Trumpets Are Com’n” is thematically a standard bearer for the whole album. An unrecognizable cover of Dinosaur Jr.’s “Freak Scene” follows this and is the only unnecessary thing on the whole record, but the arrangement does serve to lighten the mood of the record somewhat.
“Black Hair Girl” features a rising bass line that gives way to a nice finger-picking section augmented with minor chords. As luck would have it, it’s difficult to hear exactly what’s being sung all the time, but one line in the song “Heavy” is crystal clear: “If I knew then what I know now / I would still be alone.”
Side two of this LP features the single song “Death Is Here,” in which the singer welcomes his end over a bleak, mid-tempo country-blues tune. After the track ends, the vinyl continues spinning into a locked-groove, which requires the listener to actually rise up and take the needle off the record. This works great. The protagonist must be responsible and take charge of his actions if the sadness is to end. It’s fully possible, however, that I am simply looking too far into what is, in all likelihood, a simple manufacturing decision.
“Songs About Women And Dying” is a moody, sad, lonely, somewhat self-indulgent album. Music fans will note, however, that many times some of the best music has been described exactly the same way. This is probably one of those times.
Gordon Lamb
