Friends of Dean Martinez
Lost Horizon (Aero)
FODM’s trip has always been a strange one, but it’s a visceral one. The Austin via Arizona trio is adept at painting a landscape with big strokes and filling in the finer details with finger paint. They escaped from the painted desert of the Southwest on previous albums, full of lilting pedal steel and ambient strumming; the gorgeous Lost Horizon takes it to the river at the edge of the world. Opener “Landfall” floats through negative space before crashing into hypnotic waves of Bill Elm’s steel guitar. “Heart of Darkness” breaks a sweat; it could be the peyote kicking in, but the Friends do some serious Latin-flavored, just-stepped-on-a-scorpion style riffing here. “All In the Golden Afternoon” absolutely radiates from under sparse percussion and faraway organ and swaying palms. “Hidden Out of Sight” is the peak of the trip, incorporating some Southern-fried Hendrix solo fuzzage, while the somber pedal steel of “Departure” lifts us back out of the water and into some illuminated sky (picture a sweatshirt you might see in the airport in New Mexico; a wolf howling in front of a lightning bolt) skinned and sated.
This article appears in November 11 • 2005.