8. Muchacho / Phosphorescent

The D Man wrote the following run-on sentence for his review.  The only rules were no editing and no going back and doing it in less than five minutes.  It was for the best.

Phosphorescent is Alabama bred Matthew Houck and his album Muchacho is a stirring Southwestern romp pluck full of horns and guitars and a strange bubbling synth layer underneath with fits and starts like a geyser and a band of marauders camping by the fire bemoaning their predicaments and someone pulls out a sad guitar and sings about the loves he lost and the relationships he ruined and the peace he never found and the scars he never revealed and the end result was the saddest but truest campfire ever assembled on the dust-riddled plains and out sprung "Song for Zula" which is easily one of the best tracks of the year and those string flourishes and bass thumps were unlike anything else and the riffy rock of "Ride On/Right On" was as cool as it gets and the video was even better because Houck hipped around in his rhinestone cowboy duds and sparkled and danced and made you wonder with his sincerity and whether the performance was even an inside joke and the songcraft is so beautiful and brutal and wistful and hopeful and how can this not be one of the best records of the year and an original statement that moves in the same circles as Okkervil River or other literate folkies and alt-country dropouts but this even moves beyond that into a haunting and pastoral place that opens up the night stars or sears under the blazing heat of the sun depending on which track you are listening to and there should be no question that "Muchacho's Tune" will be featured in some canteen scene where the hero is drowning sorrows in a beer and the bartender looks on with a towel draped over his shoulder and then maybe later in the film "A Charm, A Blade" comes on when the hero gets his horse back and decides to ride toward the encampment where he knows that danger and salvation waits but his love will forever be out of his reach.