A fitting album for Veteran's Day, Corb Lund's latest album, Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier! is coming out tomorrow in Canada, and later on this month in the US, and is a fun concept album - it focuses for the most part on the military, and the use of Cavalry in warfare, as seen in a couple of songs here, most notably, I Wanna Be In The Cavalry, Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier, and even right down to a version of Taps.
This is a fantastic album. I'm not a fan of most country music out there, but this has the feel of The Decemberists rather than Brooks & Dunn. The lyrics are thoughtful, interesting and deep, especially revolving around the songs about war. The title track is by far the best on there, and is interesting to me as a student of history. And by no means is this an album about Civil War era warfighting - he covers all the territory, from Gengis Khan, all they way up to the current conflict with the use of horses in Afghanistan by the US Special Forces, as well as mentions of World War II, Vietnam, as well as the typical eras that you might think of this sort of thing.
The music here is very well done. The music is rich, with a deep country and folk sound that reminds me quite a bit at times of the really good Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot, who's also done some fantastic narrative, historical songs. These guys use a really good mix of instruments, ranging from mandolins, electric guitars and tight drumwork.
You can listen to the entire album at their myspace page.
Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier! - Corb Lund
Student Visas - Corb Lund
