Orville Peck - Appaloosa
Bee Delores tips her hat to Orville Peck's stunning Appaloosa EP -- according to Bee, it's one of the best of the year.
An acoustic rendering of big spectacle number "Maybe This Time" (from Cabaret) shouldn't work nearly as well as it does on Orville Peck's new EP, Appaloosa. An obvious nod to his work as the Emcee in the most recent Broadway run of the famous musical is certainly an oddball choice for a country/Americana project. But in Peck's very capable hands, it transforms into a scorching torch song that's among his best vocal performances of his career.
In truth, that can be said about the entirety of Appaloosa. He's never sounded so soul-baring and honest on record - in a catalog that's already fairly good/strong. As Jonathan Keefe over at Country Universe writes, "only he and [Tami] Neilson are operating in that exact space at this level," in regards to that haunting Bronco-like musical and lyrical sandbox of yesteryear. (Peck-Nelson collab album, when?) "Dreaded Sundown" scurries across the eardrums like tumbleweed frittering eerily on a barren wasteland, with him mourning the cold demise of love. "Time can't wait for those we've left... every day, a little death," he weeps.
"Big bored, baby, light a smoke / Time flies, tell another joke / There's gotta be more than this tired town / Don't you frown," he sings on promo single "Drift Away." The crushing blow of time weighs heavily on Peck's mind, unraveling strings before tying knots around his heart. That "power of singularity" fuels a batch of songs that celebrate "uniqueness and performance," he says in press materials, and serves as "an archive of love and fear."
He desperately seeks to escape bad luck's veiny and merciless clutches on "Atchafalaya," a tortured duet with Noah Cyrus. "Appalachia, help me on my way, bad luck can't follow me to stay," he sings. The collaboration is as a tormented moan, riding the bitter and brutal winter breath that you always know is coming soon. While "Oh My Days" glistens under the troubled rays of days plagued with suffocating love, the closing song "It's the End of the World" stares down the barrel of the gun that is fleeting existence. "So kiss me to death, there's nothing left to decide / Nothing to prove and nothing to lose, only time," he pleads. Time, as it appears, is both for recklessly misbehaving (whiling away the hours with pleasure and pain) and counting down for that very last deadly rattle.
Before you finalize your picks for Best of 2025, make sure to give Orville Peck's Appaloosa a good listen. It might shake up the whole damn thing.
