Album Review: Being Dead – When Horses Would Run

Whimsical, Wild West, Surf Punk

“Home is anywhere,” pronounces the song “Daydream,” a 1960s-influenced invitation to lay under the stars. With their penchant for galloping rhythms and Wild West escapism, it’s hardly a surprise that “home” for Being Dead is Austin, Texas. The band’s new album, When Horses Would Run takes listeners back to the very time its title implies, toeing the line between surf rock and Western Americana to conjure images of red sports cars on desert roads, cracked leather and aviator sunglasses, dusty basements and smoking guns.

Being Dead takes on a range of styles throughout Horses, from the flat, surf-punk vocals, pulsing bass and fuzzy distortion of “Muriel’s Big Day Off” and “Treeland” to the mournful folk-influenced ballads of “Misery Lane” and “Livin’ Easy.” Far from clashing, the disparate styles of the album are tied masterfully together by Being Dead’s firm aesthetic sensibilities. With production just polished enough to allow the music a gung-ho, rough around the edges charm, the album has a Spaghetti Western campiness, refusing to take itself too seriously but not suffering in quality for it – throughout the songs, listeners are swept away by hoof-stomping drum beats, cymbals jangling like stirrups and acoustic guitar filtered to give the music a sun-faded, B-movie nostalgia. The true highlight of the album is the vocal performance: Being Dead’s singers, playfully stage-named Gumball and Falcon Bitch, have an authentic friendship that shines through the music, playfully teasing during the disjointed, amelodic romp of “We are Being Dead” and harmonizing tenderly with one another in “Misery Lane,” “The Great American Picnic,” and “God vs Bible,” as warm and familial as two cowboys sitting by a fire after a long day.

Despite their charm, the vocals also manage to conjure moments of genuine terror; harmonies layer in a manner that at times feels choral, especially backed by the syrupy buzz of “Holy Team.” The adventure that Being Dead takes us on is one of camaraderie and fun, but also of loneliness and unfamiliarity, touches of distortion and slow, instrumental breaks inserting unease into the music. Even amidst the whistling and acoustic guitar of “Last Living Buffalo,” a cheery melody carrying listeners under blue skies and across rolling plains, the song dissolves at the end into a shouted repetition of the line “you killed them.” Twisting the song into something blood chilling, Being Dead reminds listeners that for all the aestheticism of the Wild West (and of the modern world) there’s still darkness lurking at the edges: cold stone churches and rifles aimed at buffalo.  

When Horses Would Run is carried out by the Johnny Cash-reminiscent “Oaklahoma Nova Scotia,” rockabilly instrumentation and harmonies reminding the listener of all the car chases and catharsis that Oklahoma holds for them next time they decide to put on Horses and visit. Audibly smiling as they sing, it’s obvious that Being Dead reveled in the adventure of creating their debut album, and sincerely hope that the listener is just as caught up in the fantasy. While not always musically similar, Being Dead is at times reminiscent of indie bands like Lord Huron in their identity as a modern band taking on a vintage aesthetic. With an undoubtedly distinctive sound, listeners will no doubt be excited to see what new frontiers Being Dead will take on in the future.