Horse Stories
Dirty Three
Score:94
Reviewer: Al Cottrill
Label: Touch & Go (USA), Anchor & Hope (Australia)
Reviewed: Jun 25th '07, Released:1996
There is hardly such sparse a picture as these three men, a wooden group on a wooden stage, rid of any modern pretence or gaudy show. Dirty Three’s self-titled album was an immediate classic, brimming with emotion and power; alone it could have been a potent legacy. It would have been mindless to tamper with this beautiful formula; Horse Stories instead is a consummate progression. Retaining the simplicity and candescent emotion that made their last album so special, Dirty Three move onto refining this sound, maturing their once brash emotions into an altogether richer spectrum. Where their debut, Sad And Dangerous was a different beast, only hinting at their future direction, three years on Horse Stories is as obvious a progression as could have been written.
Growing from the atmosphere of Dirty Three, emotion is now schizophrenic; where once it was sudden and brash, now it extends onwards. Dirty Three’s broad brushstrokes of feeling and circumstance don’t compare to the apparent focus of Horse Stories’ love. It is like comparing the fire of a lust-ravaged six-month relationship to the breakdown of one of 10 years. The range of emotions, their depth and finesse are far greater on Horse Stories, and it is a more personal record because of it. You know the Dirty Three of their self-titled album will recover, the men in Horse Stories you are not so sure.
Ellis has claimed that all of these tunes are love songs, and while that may be true, they are about the side of love not so often celebrated. They contain the spectrum of emotions love can elicit, the pain, the torment, the joy and the loss, and in particular, regret.
The increased emotional depth is apparent in the shift in atmosphere. Instead of the stark emotion and gentle phasing of the previous album, Horse Stories is more damaged and less predictable, impulsively switching between melancholy and bitter hatred. Dirty Three’s improvement in this comes from a willingness to delve further into the recesses of human emotion and experience, to use the music to tell an extended story that flows through the entire album.
It is not a pretty picture painted by Horse Stories, the stark emotions may have mellowed, but the pain and vulnerability is here like nowhere on Dirty Three. The progression in composition and depth of sound, while definite improvements instrumentally, were to the detriment of the raw edge in Dirty Three that made it so exciting. This taciturn emotion has both made the album more and less accessible, easier on the ears for those that prefer it, yet also less immediately powerful. While this does not affect the quality of the album, for they are almost mutually exclusive alternatives, the fire of Dirty Three is somewhat missed. Horse Stories instead requires longer asserting itself, but in the end will be a more rewarding experience. Both have their peaks, but as a whole, Horse Stories tells a deeper, longer and more intelligent story.
