Lord Buffalo

Lord Buffalo is heavy in the way that ghosts are heavy… in the way that billowing dust is heavy.

That is to say, the Austin, TX psych-americana band’s music impacts hard, though it seems impossible to touch. Their sound flows through us, it doesn’t invite the Pavlovian response of typical heavy rock music.

Perhaps it’s fitting then that their new album Holus Bolus takes its name from an antiquated term meaning “all at once.” It materializes instantly from the first notes of the opening title track, like a dark grey haze drawing listeners in with the band’s deft juxtapositions of droning violin, guitars, drums and vocals. It draws equally from Morricone and Badalamenti as from Sabbath and Swans.

While the quartet trudges the same murky waters as dark emotive brethren David Eugene Edwards/Woven Hand, Chelsea Wolfe, Emma Ruth Rundle, Earth/Dylan Carlson, Echo & The Bunnymen, Nick Cave, etc., their creative interplay of Middle Eastern influence with a distinctly Western feel takes listeners in entirely new directions as the album envelops them.

Lord Buffalo is Daniel Pruitt (guitar, bass, piano, vocals, melodica), Garrett Hellman (guitar, synth-bass, piano, synths), Patrick Patterson (violin), and Yamal Said (drums, percussion). Holus Bolus was recorded by Danny Reisch and Max Lorenzen at Good Danny's in Lockhart, TX. Mixed by Danny Reisch. Mastered by Max Lorenzen.

“While the making of this record feels a bit like a sleep-deprived hallucination to me,” Pruitt says. “Listening to it now, I find it strangely hopeful — there's a kind of release that you hit in exhaustion. I think the record knew what it was after, even if we didn’t. It felt very much like the record just appeared one day, holus bolus.”

Holus Bolus will be available worldwide on vinyl, CD, and digital via Blues Funeral Recordings on July 12, 2024.

–Dave Clifford (US / THEM group)