The Wand frontman’s second solo record blows open the chamber pop of his first for a lysergic and unsettling take on cosmic Americana.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that many musicians are just frustrated TV-show hosts. Not content to stage a mere livestream concert, a number of artists used their forced break from touring to launch their own DIY telecasts, from Miley Cyrus’ Instagram gabfest Bright Minded to IDLES mouthpiece Joe Talbot’s Balley TV to Yungblud’s transformation into the pop-punk James Corden. Cory Hanson—best known as the frontman for L.A. acid-rockers Wand—is the latest to cross the line, with the recent debut of his new web series, Limited Hangout. But where those aforementioned acts have used their online shows to reinforce their connection with fans in a time of isolation, Hanson is using his to scramble the signal.
For one, Hanson doesn’t so much host Limited Hangout as haunt it, appearing in red face paint and a yellow suit, and only opening his mouth to sing songs from his new solo album, Pale Horse Rider. But in between those psychedelic performance segments, Limited Hangout presents an absurdist, Tim and Eric-esque procession of puppets, dancing Uncle Sam mimes, and fishermen decked out head-to-toe in Spotify swag, all hosted by a creepy talking pink blob hovering over an ersatz Tonight Show set. In other words, the show is the complete aesthetic opposite of the serene country-rock serenades of its companion record. And yet, the two share a codependent relationship: Limited Hangout is a funhouse reflection of the manic media saturation and junky pop culture from which Pale Horse Rider provides a welcome wagon-wheeled escape.
Pale Horse Rider is Hanson’s second solo release following 2016’s The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo, an album of lushly orchestrated psych-folk lullabies that—like much of Wand’s output up to that point—still betrayed Hanson’s pedigree as a Ty Segall acolyte. But just as Wand eventually found their own voice, Pale Horse Rider finds Hanson evolving into a different kind of singer-songwriter. He’s expunged the last vestiges of arch, Brit-tinged glamminess in his voice for a honeyed cosmic-Americana croon and blown open the claustrophobic chamber-pop of Unborn Capitalist to bask in vast desert skies.
Pale Horse Rider was recorded out in the Mojave, and sounds like it—this is patient, languidly paced music, full of casual saloon-piano rolls and shooting-star pedal-steel sweeps (courtesy of Tyler Nuffer). But it’s a desert record where the glow of big-city lights can still be felt in the distance at night and the ominous hum of power lines infuses the air, suggesting the album’s peaceful mood can be disrupted at any moment. Standing at the crossroads of Music From Big Pink and All Things Must Pass, “Paper Fog” begins as pure cowboy fantasy camp—“The wind is at my back, horses running in my head,” Hanson sings—until the song’s ticking drum-machine beat explodes into a gush of psychedelic guitar. His TV show’s namesake track, “Limited Hangout,” begins in Neil Young Harvest mode before its jittery background noises become all-consuming. You start to feel like you’re laying in a hammock whose sway is making you nauseous.
Pale Horse Rider’s uncanny vibe is heightened by Hanson’s lyrics, which blur the line between fact and fable: “Angeles” shares a title and a certain bedsit intimacy with an Either/Or-era Elliott Smith track, though it’s hard to imagine Smith ever delivering a confabulated line like, “Your mama, she was a psychoanalyst, until she egged my car, and then she was my nemesis.” But when he’s not rendering everyday L.A. street scenes as mini-soap operas, Hanson strives to make the mythical feel real. Inspired by a tarot-card image of a bone-collecting skeleton on a horse, he turns the soaring title track into a redemption song that’s both triumphant and tragic, a celebration of a savior who may not be as virtuous as they appear.
After spending the record carefully tiptoeing the line between idyll and unease, Hanson finally loses his cool on “Another Story From the Center of the Earth.” Over the course of this eight-minute epic, Hanson drifts out from placid “Fade Into You” territory before arriving at his very own “Cortez the Killer.” It’s the moment where the silent flashes of lightning that were always flickering over Pale Horse Rider’s horizons become a full-on monsoon, with squealing solos that buzz and spark like a downed transformer. But even in this moment of chaos, Pale Horse Rider remains a source of great comfort. As the guitars fizzle out, the track continues on its steady path, reassuring us that every storm shall pass.
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