Night Horse - The Dark Won't Hide You (2008)

Night Horse's debut release, 2008's The Dark Won't Hide You, pegged them as eager classic rock disciples, whose musical interests and influences clearly ran no later than 1979...OK, maybe with some latter-day purists like the Black Crowes, the Four Horsemen, and Burning Tree thrown in for a kick, and thank you very much. This stance may not have bred much originality into retro-tastic material like the title track, "Wicked Love" (check out that psychedelic midsection), "Shine on Me" (boasting nifty slide guitars), and "Worried Life Blues," which, with its jilted lover lyrics and extended solos over blues vamps feels like vintage Allman Brothers warmed over. But there's no dismissing the quintet's remarkable facility for conjuring convincing (if frequently overlong) modern replicas for sounds most of them weren't even alive to enjoy the first time around -- augmented by modernizing smidgens of aggression by way of ragged vocals, ripping riffs, and a badass attitude. In short, The Dark Won't Hide You was a promising start that presaged bigger and better things for Night Horse, later borne out with the release of their first proper long-player, Perdition Hymns, two years later.