Andrew Danso

Deaf Horse may not have the edge over dirt rock, but their compositions are busy enough to keep a criticism at arms length. This then, isn’t a great position to be in. It’s OK to drive someone fast enough to a degree of appreciation, but taking the other road to apathy is something very much undesired. Who wants to hear an artist within an exhausted genre producing something stuck in its middle ground?

“Out to Sea” does a fair job at imitating that dirty sound which characterised Queen’s Of The Stage. Front man Ben Noble, in one sense wreaks out of place, with a skinny, clean vocal, on top of the fat and ugly distortion. In another light, what they’ve produced here is quite clever. It feels like a bridge between an indie-rock and stoner production, with enough guile and likeminded riffing in the two genres to perhaps satisfy both sets of fans. Then again this encapsulates Deaf Horse’s problem: they sound in transition, and it’s difficult to unearth poignancy about their sound, which should be present. It’s not as if they’re under-performing. They really do try.

6/10 Powerplay #139