Penny Horses, a local alt-country band, recently released their debut album A Place to Rest Your Dead. My first impression from listening to the album is thinking that the music would fit in perfectly at an old country western bar — the hoarse, gritty vocals of lead singer Bryce Brown, the blues influenced guitar solos from Tim McGee, and the classic country style of songwriting would lend itself very nicely to a night spent sippin’ whiskey in a barroom somewhere in Central Illinois. The mental images conjured up by the Penny Horses are striking, but may sometimes lack the depth or authenticity to really draw the listener into their world. That said, there’s plenty to dig into here with this one.
The cover art of A Place to Rest Your Dead depicts a human skeleton and horse standing over a graveyard and a pile of skulls while looking out over Monument Valley, a location that is a defining image of the American West and has been featured in dozens of classic Westerns. The cover art calls to mind a world of outlaws and whiskey, and it’s no surprise that these subjects are featured heavily in the album. The opening track “Me & The Dead” starts off with a guitar lick that could be straight off an old Western soundtrack, before the rest of the band joins in and plays a strangely uplifting opening track with lyrics like: “I keep running away from you, me and the dead, baby, we got nothing to lose”.
On the band’s Bandcamp page — there it describes most of the songs on the album as coming from a “deep dark place” — which is evident in songs like “Drowning Tub”, which is, well, about contemplating drowning yourself in a bathtub. However, the mood and rhythm of the music doesn’t always come across as deep and dark, and the songwriting feels a little bit stretched at times on songs like “29 Pills” which features lyrics like “You can’t buy friends, no you can’t buy soul, you can’t pawn heartache off on credit — that’s what drinking whiskey is for”. In songs like “29 Pills” one would think that the band would seek to create songs that are authentic to this region of Central Illinois, rather than to create a song that fits into a preconceived idea of what a country music song should be. However, it’s understood that this is an approach the band takes because of the theme they’re conjuring up throughout.
You don’t hear too much from vocalist Ashley Laine until “Let’s Call it Off”, a duet featuring her and Brown about calling off their engagement that feels a bit too upbeat considering the subject matter of the song. However, the clean and soft vocals provided by Laine offers a great counterbalance to the more gritty vocal style of Brown.
While I may not necessarily find myself repeatedly coming back to this album, with the exception of a few songs like “Hole in My Head” (which is a definite highlight of the record), there the quality of the music throughout the record is where much credit is due. The band has great chemistry, and as a debut, it is exciting to think of what they have in store for the future. Even though the songwriting seems a bit stretched at times, there is, without a doubt, a good dose of energy and emotion to fuel the music. If nothing else, this album has inspired me to make an effort to go out and see Penny Horses play live, and after giving the album a listen I hope you will feel the same way. Overall, this is a very solid debut album from a band that is at the forefront of a growing alt-country scene here in C-U.