Baby Horses

Six songs through My Big Fat Privates by Baby Horses, things were going extremely well.

Their soulful, instrumental brand of rock had offered up some quality tracks. They were varied, and by all means impeccably played. There was a variety of instrumentation, and the styles and structures all coalesced extremely well, to craft scatterbrained, but extremely enjoyable songs. Then track seven comes on, and sets the band back about 4 steps. "Most people don’t believe me, when I tell ‘em I’m a baby horse / But it is true, and as a matter of fact, I can prove it here today! / I wag my tail and I do funny lip movements when I want some food from your hand." Had this come from Atom and His Package, I’d have thought it to be pretty damn funny, but this track just completely killed the flow the album had to that point. Luckily, after I recover from that needless stupidity, the band does get back on track.

It’s difficult to say how such simple songwriting can seem so structurally beautiful. The tones of the instruments are really what makes things. A little bit of blues/funk flavor, and a little bit of country twang both mix to form the basis by which a lot of these songs are written. None are terribly long, all establishing their basis early on, and getting to the point rather quickly.

“Weather Channel” sounds about as somber and full of remorse as an instrumental track possibly can, and it’s the intangibles that keep on driving the song. The rhythms are great, be they quick or slow, it just sounds perfect either way. The delicate guitar plucking never really has to be anything more than that, delicate. The band stays in reserve mode for the most part, and there’s really no problem with that. “Good Fiddle” brings out a little bit of the band's faster nature, but even that seems sort of short lived, as the pace dies down to a gorgeous, flowing one after long. But as it appears on this final track, they really can’t set their mind on a specific goal. Fast and slow, fast and slow, many times both going on at the very same instant, with the inclusions of the Chinese harp and vibraphone injecting even more variety than was originally present.

Save for the seventh song, this is a complete and varied album, full of all the instruments and sounds that you could really ask for in one place.