Tex Perkins and the DarkHorses - Tex Perkins andthe Dark Horses

Mon 27th Jun, 2011 in Music Reviews

Tex Perkins has a flair for the dramatic. His long tenure in the Australian music vernacular has found him gesticulating like a wild man in a sweaty club fronting the Beasts of Bourbon, participating in musicals about Johnny Cash and taking turns down surprising musical avenues with His Ladyboyz. And now, after declaring them dead in 2006, Tex Perkins and The Dark Horses have been resurrected with an oozing album of dark country songs of the same name.

The fourth record from the Dark Horses sees some new foals among the familiar faces but you can’t tell; Charlie Owen, Murray Paterson, Joel Silbersher, Steve Hadley and Gus Agar gel naturally on the record and Perkins’ familiar gravelled voice smoulders across the album with an ease that belies the hard living that earned him his husky signature. Without pushing his voice to the extremes of his more rollicking acts, he creates the same power by letting his voice seethe amongst the sonic layering provided by the band.

The album sees Perkins looking into an empty glass of disenchantment as he haunts the western landscapes of Won’t Last Long and Getting Away With It. Guitars slide and swirl around an ascending piano riff as Perkins whispers his refrain, “You realise there’s no getting away with it.” These slow burners make up the majority of the record, but the Dark Horses keep it interesting by ensuring they don’t follow the same formula with each song, while keeping a cohesive sound for the duration of the record.

It’s not all doom and gloom either. Tongues are firmly in cheek during album opener What Do You Want Now? and Tex and the gang remain cheerful as they poke barbs at their own pessimism in the redemptive Things Don’t Seem So Bad… After All. On the latter Perkins croons “As I recline in my easy chair, I may appear to have lost the ability to care” coming as a relief following the records penultimate exercise in self-pity, Easier Without You.

Tex Perkins and the Dark Horses have released one of the most consistent records of their careers, avoiding overindulgence and filler throughout its 14 tracks. Tex Perkins pulls you down to the bottom with him on a dark musical journey and his final moments of revelation and redemption are your reward for staying with him.