Bonny Light Horseman
Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free

5.0
classic

Review

by doofy USER (29 Reviews)
June 10th, 2024 | 86 replies

Release Date: 06/07/2024 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Bonny Light Horseman: KILL or KEEP?

Some bands you find yourself really rooting for, especially when it feels like all the ingredients are there already, just waiting to click. This feeling is stronger still when you imagine the clock is ticking, and a band of unheralded veterans will always appeal to that underdog narrative. ‘Supergroup’ (it’s a stretch) Bonny Light Horseman are a case in point, though I suppose you could argue Anais Mitchell has already released a definitive work in 2010’s ‘Hadestown’; that being as it may, that's still going back fourteen years so surely there's a need for her to deliver something even closer to an unapologetic monster hit. Well, through channelling peak ‘70s era Fleetwood Mac, the self titled Fleet Foxes debut, and recent Big Thief, BLH have done just that - unleashed a double album of as close to ‘all killer, no filler’ as would seem humanly possible.

First impressions were positive but having got to know the band’s two previous efforts it felt like I’d been programmed to expect some padding in the track-list and to hunt for the nuggets. In truth only four or five of the eighteen (disregarding the two short interludes) songs included on this double set grabbed me on the first spin; the pre release singles were strong but ‘Old Dutch’ especially stood out for having a widescreen and just plain beefier sound to usual, and then later you had the catchy ‘The Clover’ and the supreme alt country of ‘Tumblin Down’. That was enough to at least start thinking this might be their most fruitful work so far but beyond that it still felt mostly like business as usual, just with a degree more polish.

Subsequent listens were revelatory; the ballad miniatures ‘I Wanna Be Where You Are’ and ‘Your Arms (All the Time)’ were perfect vehicles for Mitchell’s country ‘squeak’; ‘Singing to the Mandolin’ and ‘Waiting and Waiting’ expert pop rock with some additional Fleet Foxes flavours; while ‘Over the Pass’ and the expansive closer ‘See You Free’ let those guitars sing, becoming anthems in a way previous BLH songs failed to quite manage. Was there still some filler to navigate? Well, the bright barroom folk of ‘Hare and Hounds’ doesn’t feel like an essential inclusion and it’s followed by ‘Rock the Cradle’, a simplistic folk lullaby that is maybe the only song that truly falls into ‘overly twee’ territory. Beyond that ‘Don’t Know Why You Move Me’ is a little bit of a pace killer, a plodder, though still a composition with some merit nonetheless.

So an eighteen song double album where the biggest weakness is three or four tunes drop to merely ‘quite good’ level must be something close to a miracle of consistency right? That’s how it’s landing for me, a bumper set of by turns soul stirring and poignant cuts that prove faith in this trio of effectively ‘musical journeymen’ was warranted. There’s something life affirming in that.

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