All The Tired Horses - A Coastline and A Forest

As taught in most high school and college writing classes, the opening sentence is one of the most important aspects of a paper. It is supposed to draw you in and get you interested in the subject at hand. If the paper has a bad opener, you’re probably going to turn your nose up at it and decide it’s not worth your time.

I’ve always thought this was a good rule to live by with albums as well. If the first song doesn’t pull me in, I’m usually thrown off and have a hard time getting into the rest of the album. With that said, this is my warning to you: skip the first song, maybe even the first two songs on All The Tired Horses’ new album, A Coastline and a Forest.

The opening tracks, “T Shirt” and “Television Light” are just plain boring. “T Shirt” is a slow ballad set over airy background tones and clunky guitar with an occasional kick of the bass drum. The lyrics and vocals are O.K., but seem ridiculous set over the moody instrumentals. “Television Light” gets a little better but it still has that overly dramatic but juvenile simplicity to it that doesn’t really work.

Once you get past those, the album starts to turn a sharp corner. With, at times, good rhythm guitar and drums, the band has a “you’ve heard it before, but it’s still fun to listen to” northern country/folk sound. Jeremiah Wingerden, the band’s lead singer and songwriter, has a thick yet crisp voice, very reminiscent of Elvis Costello. The album should start off with the song “A Coastline and a Forest.” Very soulful and melodic, this song should have been the one to get you in the mood for the rest of the album. But in the end, it is the song “This Day,” that beats out all the other tracks hands down. On this track, All the Tired Horses manage to bring everything together: great lyrics, deep vocals, a neverending backbeat, and melodic guitar riffs.

The two opening songs are not the only drawbacks of A Coastline and A Forest. The fact that their sound doesn’t try anything new makes them a little mundane. Once you listen to the album, you’ll probably be able to name a handful of well-known bands (Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, etc.) that their sound mimics but doesn’t quite transcend. All the Tired Horses seem to have all the components of a successful group but they haven’t quite put it all together yet. If they stepped it up a notch, added more complicated guitar patterns and a little of their own personality in the mix instead of a combination of a bunch of bands they probably grew up with, they might have something. Right now, the first impression of All the Tired Horses is that they already seem pretty tired and worn out, which is even more depressing when you realize that this is their debut album.

To purchase a copy of this album, please visit Submergent Music.