Writing a review of Friends of Dean Martinez without mentioning the desert is like writing a book without the letter "e"-- it can be done, but it's difficult and time-consuming. Ernest Vincent Wright accomplished the latter feat back in 1939 with his epic lipogram Gadsby, and it took him about five months, whereas I just caved instantly to my basest critical instincts. Really though, discussing music, especially instrumental music, in environmental terms is a pretty good way to get a point across, so let's get it on: this band's music has always conjured wide-open, arid spaces, in scorching daylight and frigid night time alike. And their latest album, Lost Horizon, finds them still exploring familiar environs.
The album also continues another FODM album trend: each is darker than the last. Various organs hum quietly in support of the searching guitars of Bill Elm and Mike Semple, and brushed drum beats fall like boots on hard-blown sand. Guitars have always been king amongst the Friends, but the playing here is especially intense and fluid, with uniformly impeccable phrasing. These guys are accomplished musicians, and the music is stuffed with emotional longing and heated crescendos.
A soft, humming drone opens the album, and a stunning guitar lead drops in on top of it, wandering only slightly distorted in a galaxy-sized echo chamber, finally reaching its climax over a thumping, tumbling drum beat as notes fall from the guitar like light from a sparkler. The band picks up the pace a few tracks later on "Heart of Darkness" with an unusually fractured drum break, topped by ferocious, almost raga-like guitar and a subtly employed choir sound on either a mellotron or a chamberlain. The pace doesn't stay quick for long, though-- the album is centered by two gorgeous slow tracks that give off melodies like waves of heat on a horizon.
Sumptuous beauty is the main ingredient in most of the rest of the album, though "Hidden Out of Sight" does provide one last hurrah for feedback and heavy fuzz. The acoustic guitar-dominated songs that surround it play more readily to the band's strengths and have a wider dynamic range, building up and breaking down with natural ease. That same natural ease is a part of what makes Friends of Dean Martinez so compelling-- they play sophisticated music, but they let it develop organically, at whatever pace seems right. In this case, they've developed yet another excellent album of beautifully arid music.
