It’s album number five of “Keller-Gospel” for The Dad Horse Experience and this time the oblique melancholy that forever haunts their songs is lifted all the way to the altar. Seasoning songs of torment with devotional salt is hardly unusual but “Eating Meatballs on a Blood Stained Mattress in a Huggy Bear Motel” manages to take things to closer to the church whilst lifting them clear of the false gods of Americana.
The gruff, some might say injured, Dad Horse voice scrapes its way through all the songs with sandpapered gusto yet there is a certain elegance, or perhaps grace is a better word, driving songs like “Under Swine & Bears” and “Reach Out Your Hand Revisited” ever forward yet the whimsy, as always, maintains a discrete presence with “Huggy Bear Motel” and “Little White Fish” being distinctly playful in comparison with the dark shadows cast over the rest of the songs and, despite the Brechtian intent, even the redemption powered 17 minute “Rain” seems closer to theatre than drama.
It might seem to be the same old song but it really isn’t.