Dad Horse Experience, The - Dead Dog on a Highway (Album)
If you only buy one teutonic evangelical prohibitionist banjo-pluckin’ skewed gospel album this year, make it this one.
The Dad Horse Experience is mainly Dad Horse Ottn, a one-man-band from Germany who expounds extreme religion: a fundamentalist. “Dead Dog on a Highway”, his second album, heralds his appearances at The Falls and Hobart’s MONA FOMA festival.
Much as a judo artist might use an opponent’s strength against them, The Dad Horse Experience has taken the Devil’s music – the blues – and retooled it as an arsenal for Jesus. This is anti-Hillsong. In fact, with its images of canine roadkill, infirmaries and the Twin Towers resurrected in the afterlife, this is more BootHillsong. Fine banjo pickin’ is borne aloft on the snorts and moans of a foot-pedal bass, giving the songs a harsh earthiness. Add the burred baritone of the vocals – a growl that soars to an impassioned howl – and you know that Dad Horse has seen a lot of darkness on the way to seeing the light.
Many songs are sparse and atmospheric, but “Kingdom It Will Come” is a rousing, stomping celebration. And just when you think it couldn’t get any more manic, the kazoo kicks in. Raw, blurting, blasting: I have seen the future of the blues, and it’s the kazoo. Gently yodelling backing vocals lighten the dark vision of “WTC in Heaven”, in which dead financiers trade for their souls. The warped polka of “Merchandise Song” is a paean to the joys of offloading t-shirts and CDs in the name of Jesus (Tillsong?). “St. James Infirmary” has been covered by everyone from Tom Jones to The White Stripes: this version is guttural and murky.
Drum machines add a brighter texture to “The Party” and punchy electric guitar enlivens “Keller Gospel One Man Band”. It’s here that Ottn expounds his theory of “new rock’n’roll” which is heavily reliant on – you guessed it – the kazoo. The nasal thunder of this membranophone brings this rocker to a shuddering close. Finally, “He Is My Song And My Story” is an oom-pah-pah gospel number. Imagine a Salvation Army band playing in a German beer hall.
Dad Horse puts the “fun” and “mental” into fundamentalism. Worship it.
