DEAD HORSE ONE review: The West is the Best
From Valence, France's Shoegaze/Neo-Psychedelic Rock band DEAD HORSE ONE has done it again with their musical dreamland third album, ‘The West Is The Best’.
Along for another "RIDE" (pun intended) is Mark Gardener mixing, as well Fleeting Joys' John Loring producing – Loring worked on DEAD HORSE ONE's 2016 album, ‘Season Of The Mist’, in all its glory.
Loring's bandmate and wife Rorika Loring is also featured as singer and co-writer along with John and DEAD HORSE ONE for "Saudade,” a gorgeous track that transports the listener to a reverb-stroll through the French countryside. I love this album.
I've been a fan since getting DEAD HORSE ONE pointed in my direction by another fine French Psych/Shoegaze musician, Martin Carriere of You Said Strange. I first listened to the exhilarating "Undone" off the poetic band’s album ‘Without Love We Perish’, becoming totally hooked, (which I still attempt a cover of this song in my own sets) ... but back to ‘The West Is The Best’.
Olivier Debard writes most the songs and shares vocals with bassist Ludovic Naud, which combined are scintillating and haunting. Antoine Pinet on guitar (also member of French band H-Burns), and Ivan Tziboulsky make up the rest of the band. Together, they create a tapestry of sounds that immediately takes you to their intended mood destinations.
‘The West Is The Best’, according to Debard, takes some inspiration from his past ‘90s first-wave shoegaze/dream pop and other rock music tastes, which only heightens its ultimate freshness for each of the 9 intermingling tracks. Thanks again to Mark Gardener, this record connects all the elements of what makes DEAD HORSE ONE's music instantly recognizable.
Psych-Grunge-Dreamgaze–whatever it is–there are so many great songs, with many touches of genres on The West Is The Best. Starting with the opener "Echo Street" showcasing Debard and Naud's singing with a chorus of complementary chiming guitars, you just know this is going to be another lovely DH1 experience.
Next comes the magnificent collaboration "Saudade" ("missing" in Portuguese). One can hear Olivier's past influences such as the often-cited Sparklehorse, combined with DEAD HORSE ONE's distinctive sound, creating a growing kaleidoscope of whirling guitars, dark emotions and intriguing lyrics, and we're only two songs in! It all works so well.
After "Saudade," (which the multi-talented Pedro Wilde produced an enchanting video for starring Carolina Marques), dances in "Falling." With its tearful strums and tailing off hushed harmonies, it evokes feelings of isolated youth.
Then comes the appropriate follow to "Falling,” track #4: "Lost." By this point it's almost too much to behold, a captivating, perfect tune that ends with an extra-long, dynamic power chord–an ode to Nirvana perhaps?
"The Shrine" is an exotic throwback to when the sitar world and psych rock became one, and is most divine.
My personal favorite on the album–I can not tell you how fast it takes me into intense contemplation –is "Olifnt" (*Olifant). It begins heavy and ends heavy, reminiscent of ‘90s Stone Temple Pilots riffs. After its intro comes a mix of shoegaze, grunge, and the always-present psych, which eventually enters a lovely waltz of free-flowing guitars, bass, drums, and keys. Olivier Debard did some educating about the song’s name: "The olifant was a wind instrument, usually made of an animal’s horn... an instrument which was carried by the chiefs, or a man who followed, engaged in war, to unite their world, or to warn of their approach."
By the time "Gaze" starts you will really be loving this album, and the track will lift your spirits back up again as there's a glint of hope here. Track 8, "Swallow," is back to a repentant, gray feeling, beautiful and foreboding.
I could use more time with Debard’s lyrics, but on "Swallow's" music alone, you know the journey is nearing its end.
"My Pain”–all of our pain–is the grand moving finale that reaches into the unknown, a musical question mark of “where do we go from here?”
I'm fully confident that with Debard's superb writing, more work with Gardener, Loring and the rest of this talented band, the best of Dead Horse One is yet to come. Waiting for the next DEAD HORSE ONE LP for myself–and all their fans–is tantamount to past others who anxiously anticipated the next Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine or The Brian Jonestown Massacre offerings.
‘The West Is The Best’ came out late in 2019 so it missed a few end of the music year top lists [Editor’s note: not Noise Artists’], but make no mistake, it is a shoegaze masterpiece for the ages. Now, to get them to tour America !
