Categories : Country + Western, Featured Review, Music Reviews.
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Rating: 3/5 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
It’s easy to write off Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier! early on – it comes across as a passive-aggressive war album, more about the horses than the soldiers. Vocally, Lund tries to avoid getting in his own way as he has on past releases, but he can’t help slipping into his put-on country drawl on occasion.
Marching song ‘I Wanna Be in the Cavalry’ and ballad ‘The Horse I Rode In On’ are fun, but wear thin quickly. It’s not until halfway through the album and the haunting ‘Student Visas’ that Corb Lund is able to command attention. The chilling tale about a career soldier fighting in South America is appropriately sombre and affecting, speaking of an “unspeakable guilt†along with lyrics like “They said we’s fightin’ communists but it was kinda hard to tell.â€
‘Visas’ is so well-crafted that the rest of the album pales in comparison. Lund’s devoted fan base comes from all walks of life, and mostly they seem attracted to his fun-loving side, but Horse Soldier! shows that the solemn Corb Lund is truly the most interesting.
