CD REVIEW: THE BLIND HORSES – Ugly Jack

CD REVIEW: THE BLIND HORSES – Ugly Jack
Independent
October 2012
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
7 ½ /10

Every now and then I grab an album from the pile of review CDs that got missed when they first arrived, and delve in to see what they’re all about. This album by The Blind Horses, who hail from around the Northern French/Belgian border, in one such album that was put aside upon release – that was my first mistake.

My second error was to assume that a bunch of French guys called Blind Horses playing banjos, trumpets and glockenspiels would produce a straight-ahead country and western record.

What we have here is something darker, like a wide-screen mix of Lanegan and Cave and Violent Femmes and Morricone filtered through a darkly flickering drive-in screen showing an all-night Western marathon as imagined by Tarantino. A mariachi trumpet wails over a moody organ here, banjos duel there, and the rhythm section evokes ghost blues throughout.

Ugly Jack is a brooding, gothic treat, full of swagger and purpose that invokes the vision of an Eastwood-ian high plains drifter in a dusty poncho and hat atop his horse, a thin cheroot hanging from his lip.

 

Category: CD Reviews