We had the chance to talk to LORD BUFFALO’s frontman Daniel Pruitt when they released their last album “Tohu Wa Bohu” in 2020. He said that his environment was one of the main inspirations for his music. : “Place is powerful. As humans, we interacted with places long before we developed language or tools or concepts of ownership and possession. (…) When we engage with place we tap into some older area of our thinking, one that feels larger and more impressionistic than most of our day to day cognizance. (…) recognizing the minutiae through our senses without analyzing the information by processing it through language. This sort of experience is what I look for in music and writing and art.”
No wonder Lord Buffalo’s music is so evocative. Some would say cinematic. As if Warren Ellis was in charge of the “No Country For Old Men” soundtrack. With their unique blend of Americana, psychedelia and dark folk, the Austin, Texas four-piece have painted America’s desolate landscapes, ochre with dust, both infertile and cursed. Their music encapsulates those ghost towns, land of hobos, broken faces, survivors of a second-rate continental country. More than a scenery, it’s a feeling. The frontman remembers the geneis of this album as “the impression of being a nocturnal hallucination”. “Holus Bolus” feels like a sleep-deprived trip to the heart of the Great Plains, tracing the relentless straight roads slicing through the desert. The salt of sweat stings your eyes, and mirages mingling with fatigue-induced hallucinations suddenly come to life.
But with Lord Buffalo, we quickly leave the white lines behind and venture into dark and twisted territory. The Texans draw on the darkest recesses of American music to spit out muddy Americana and psychedelia bordering on the venomous. The fully instrumental “Slow Drug” is fairly symptomatic of this surreal, enigmatic atmosphere filled with distorted screams, crescendoing drones and pounding percussion. And there’s absolutely nothing soothing about the darkness that emanates from it. Their music is a black cloud packed with (acid) rain looming on the horizon. Another instrumental, “Rowing In Eden” unfolds slowly to only grow in tension and intensity. We can imagine the storm approaching in an anguished dramaturgy (“I Wait on The Door Slab”).
Yet from this pessimism emerges an unsuspected and unexpected glimmer of hope. “Listening to the album now, I find it strangely hopeful – like a kind of liberation from exhaustion,” the singer marvels. This has become their trademark. In the form of a wild ride across the High Plains, this chiaroscuro is sometimes as violent as these landscapes. Despite its acerbic description of 21st-century America, “Holus Bolus” (which means ‘a little of everything’) remains a dynamic track with vibrant percussion as Patrick Patterson’s dissonant violin bursts forth. The end of “Passing Joy” is almost euphoric, even though the whole song is one of disenchantment. With an intro that is disemboweled to the bone, “Malpaisano” showcases Daniel Pruitt’s haunted poetry (reminiscent of King Lizard) until keyboards and melodica lift the track to the heavens. One of Lord Buffalo’s finest tracks without a doubt.
Perhaps less surprising than their previous record, this third album still establishes Lord Buffalo’s sonic identity for good. “Holus Bolus” remains concise, clocking in at 38 minutes. We’re still a little hungry, as we’d like Lord Buffalo to be able to show off their full potential in a longer album. For these Texans are now closer to their fellow purveyors of secular American music All Them Witches, who revisit the latter through the prism of feverish psychedelia.
Last modified: 3 September 2024
