Pale Horse Rider

Chronique

Prolific and versatile, Los Angeles musician Cory Hanson's music has many faces. As the frontperson of Wand, Hanson and his bandmates churned out ragged and glorious psychedelic art rock, but his duo with like-minded polymath Ty Segall toned the experimentation down a touch for more acoustically drawn surreal rock. When Hanson issued his first solo album with 2016's The Unborn Capitalist from Limbo, it was a set of murmuring orchestral acid folk tunes akin to Jessica Pratt's gentle songcraft, or Syd Barrett at his softest and most contemplative. With second solo album Pale Horse Rider, Hanson goes in yet another direction, shaking off the reverb and fuzz of previous outings for an album of restrained and melancholic Americana. This change, of course, is announced with album-opener "Paper Fog," setting the pace with a subdued country-rock arrangement that's vast enough to hold both gliding pedal steel guitar runs, Hanson's drifting vocal harmonies, and understated moments of synth disruptions. The psychedelic elements are toned down throughout Pale Horse Rider, but show up in the form of unexpected lulls filled with field recordings or unexpected left turns, like the jazzy outro of "Bird of Paradise," or the sudden break into Neil Young-grade guitar distortion on "Another Story from the Center of the Earth." Several of the album's best songs find Hanson's lonely vocals front and center. "Angeles" surrounds the singer with backing from bass and a steady kick drum, highlighting his plaintive but still somewhat abstract lyrics linking the Los Angeles wildfires to searching for fulfillment in life and relationships. Hanson sings about someone driving an ambulance in his dreams as wails of noisy feedback squelch low in the mix. The swaying title track is a lush blend of organic instruments pushing ahead triumphantly and a chorus of affected, otherworldly backing vocalists joining Hanson like a collection of angelic aliens. Brief ambient interludes "Necklace" and "Surface to Air" link the more traditionally structured tunes, providing the equivalent of starry night skies to Hanson's desert-colored songs. Pale Horse Rider is lonely, lamenting, and distant but beautifully warm, marrying Hanson's love of psychedelic experimentation with a more cosmic take on country. It's more immediate than his sometimes-deranged earlier work, but never so straitlaced as to feel safe or predictable.

© Fred Thomas /TiVo