Coming off the amazing Hot Rise Of An Ice Cream Phoenix in 2021, Divine Horsemen return  with a new 17 song double disc. After I had given this record a first listen the impression I had  was that it had a somber and melancholy feel to it when compared to the previous record. But  on the second listen it appears that the sadness doesn’t really kick in until the third track, “You  Knew No Other Way”. And even then there are several songs that don’t reflect sadness.  As with the previous album Divine Horsemen draw from a large musical vocabulary to add  whatever flavor a song might call for. While a band like Social Distortion may win points from  Bruce Springsteen for sounding like “Americana”, this band really captures the sound of what  American music is. In the writing, the playing and the singing it is obvious that this band has  done their musical homework and have a real feel for the American road and what that means  to people who want to love this country for all the good things it represents past and present.  To be clear, I love The Boss and I enjoy Social Distortion’s early recordings but their version of  America seems as thin as a piece of paper compared to the raw, down and dirty emotions laid  bare in this recording. 

I asked the male voice on this record about the comparatively serious tone of this record and  Chris cleared up the feeling going into preparing for this record. 

“Yes, I think it turned out that way, too. A lot of it had to do with the cabin fever vibe of the  pandemic. But that being said, a lot of those emotions in the songs I wrote during that period  had been building to a head for approximately 10 years. And they all came flooding out during  that intense period of writing.” 

Some of the songs were festering in Chris’ mind while others were new. The songs have a  cohesiveness to them and some come from very dark places. 

“”Murder of Courage” was a song I wrote in 1995 approximately a year before I got clean from  dope, and there’s that back story very obviously in the song, though I cut out the last, 4th verse  on this newer, just-released version,” he explains. “The original appears on an all-acoustic solo  

album “Love Cannot Die” which Sympathy for the Record Industry released in 1995 (CD only).  The song was originally referencing my then latest ex-girlfriend, Juanita, though many people  will naturally assume – especially with Julie singing on this more electric version – that it’s  about Julie and I breaking-up in 1987. Julie was a good sport agreeing to sing it, and I think it is  the superior version of the song.” 

Julie Christensen and her lovely voice is an interesting counterpart to Chris and his wild wails.  With age his voice has deepened and has a new weariness to it while Julie’s voice shines like the  light needed to compliment his roughness. But Julie contributes more than just a voice.  “”Bitter End” and “Notorious” were written during the pandemic, me writing the lyrics, Julie  writing the music. When I sent the words to Julie remotely for “Notorious” I told her to listen to  the very creepy Cajun waltz playing over the end credits of the 2009 New Orleans-set neo-noir  film directed by Bertrand Tavernier, “In the Electric Mist” for inspiration when writing the  music. “No Mercy” and “These Evils” were songs Julie brought in that she co-wrote with other  writers, from 2016 (the original version of “No Mercy” appeared on Julie’s album with her band, 

Stone Cupid, called “The Cardinal”) and 1990 respectively (“These Evils” never got recorded  before).” 

On the previous record there was a raucous cover of Patti Smith’s “25th Floor” included along  with a Jefferson Airplane song and a song written by Robert Downey, Sr. for one of his early  films and on this new release there are some interesting covers as well. 

“There are three outside covers on the album, “The Next Man that I See” originally from the  late Anita Lane’s 2001 album, “Sex O’clock”; “Coffee Shop Blues” originally from Smoke Fairies  2020 album, “Darkness Brings the Wonders Home” and “It’s Still Nowhere” by Ed Kuepper’s  post-Saints combo The Aints, from their 1990 album “Ascension”. All the rest of the songs were  written during 2020-2021,” Chris says. “Erika Wear wrote the lyrics to “Garden of Night” after  hearing/singing the words in a dream she had (!!!) and I used her lyrics virtually unchanged. She  could not remember the music from the dream, but after the song was complete, she told me  the music I came up with was the music from the dream!” 

A large part of the somber tone of this record had to do with some of the writing occurring during the covid-19 lockdown. Since the world had a big “closed” sign on it, the band members  had to figure out a system to put songs together. With the internet musicians can now work remotely on projects and this worked fine for Divine Horsemen. 

“The way I write music for songs these days is coming up with a couple of riff progressions for  each song on acoustic guitar, which I record very clumsily and poorly on my laptop video app,  to show Peter what I want in each song,” Chris explains. “I did that on the “Hot Rise of an Ice  Cream Phoenix” album as well, before the pandemic in 2018 and 2019. Then once he has  screwed around with my musical ideas at home, we’ll get together in the rehearsal space that  he and our bass player Bobby have, and we’ll put the songs more solidly together, with Peter  sometimes changing the parts as far as octaves and keys, and maybe adding a bridge. Some of  my musical ideas are like square pegs we try to fit into round holes, and Peter has the  unenviable task of squeezing those sharp-edged pegs into their holes so they work properly!” One of the joys of these last two Divine Horsemen records is the guitar playing. Peter Andrus  handles both acoustic and electric guitar in a masterful fashion. Not to take anything away from  the tight rhythm section of Bobby Permanent on bass and the legendary D.J. Bonebrake of X on  drums. They provide solid rhythms for the guitar and singers to run wild over. While there is a vibe of loneliness in many of the songs there are also hard-hitting rockers like  “Dirty Like An Angel” and “On The Wane”. One of the songs went through rewrites as the  writing process was happening and Chris had to allow his ego to take a backseat to the  suggestions of his band mates. 

“It happens rarely, but on “Dirty Like an Angel”, both Julie and Peter did not like the music I  came up with for the chorus, and I had to rewrite the music for that part a couple of times  before it worked out right,” he says. “Which I am glad I did, and that I did not give up. The first  music we worked up, for “On the Wane” and “Footptrints on the Moon”, was done in 2020, and  those are probably the most punk sounding tunes.” 

With a whopping seventeen songs on the album it is understandable that some songs had been  kicking around and others had been newly written. But did the band intend to include all these  songs and were there any outtakes? 

“No, no other tunes leftover (though I have about 6 songs fully written and another additional 6  sets of just lyrics for future projects, either Divine Horsemen or solo; at this point, I sincerely 

doubt there’ll be any more Flesh Eaters records). As far as Divine Horsemen’s “Bitter End of A  Sweet Night”, yes, we planned from the start to make it another double vinyl album. In fact, I  okayed it with Larry Hardy, head of In the Red Records first before we went ahead learning all  those songs!” 

Chris is a film buff and historian and you can tell he loves incorporating ideas he gets from  watching films into his music. Film fans will note a youthful image of French film legend and star  of Le Samourai Alain Delon on the cover. 

“Yes, very young, probably circa 1961 or ’62…I wanted to make his face cut in half like that to  convey an ongoing scenario happening outside the record cover art.” 

The new Divine Horseman record is available on double vinyl with inserts containing the song  lyrics and album credits plus some great art and photos.