JAMES McMURTRY - The Horses and the Hounds LP

Limited edition grey colour vinyl.

James McMurtry currently resides on the far windward side of 55 and may have just produced his best album yet.

Most impressively, he may have produced it after his previous best album, the bleak portrait of the flyover states Complicated Game. Complicated Game is nervy and relentless as the boot of capitalism stomping on your face forever. The Horses And The Hounds is more resigned, but brighter and more comfortable in that resignation.

James’s greatest liability in the long form was that his albums and songs stretched long on desolate stories and repetitive Americana, with little in the way of variety. The Horses And The Hounds is, by James’s sprawling, shaggy standards, the tightest, catchiest, hookiest record he’s ever put out. There’s a few lyric sheets here that call back to James’s most famous, most biblical trudges through the rusted detritus of states whose greatest contribution to my life has been the interstate.