It may be 15 years since 2008’s imperious The Holy Pictures, but it’s not as if Belfast polymath David Holmes has been twiddling his thumbs in the interim with at least a dozen film soundtracks, four albums with side project Unloved, production work and his idiosyncratic club series God’s Waiting Room are all evidence of that.
Now he presents his monumental fifth solo album. Where The Holy Pictures was intensely personal, a love letter to his family, Blind On A Galloping Horse is outward-looking and impassioned, informed by the parlous state of post-Brexit Britain, endless refugee crises and injustice. As ever with Holmes, it’s a sonic banquet, offering skyscraping pop (It’s Over, If We Run Out Of Love), Suicide-esque post-punk (I Laugh Myself To Sleep) and moments of exquisite beauty (You Will Know Me By The Smell Of Onions, a title inspired by Holmes’ late compadre Andrew Weatherall).
The album plays like a movie, interspersed with voice notes from Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, and the secret weapon is the vocals from newcomer Raven Violet – Holmes’s goddaughter – whose youthful energy drives the record. Best of all is Necessary Genius, with its roll call of artistic heroes from Samuel Beckett to another departed friend, Sinéad O’Connor; a reminder of the power of art to move and inspire us. It’s the most direct Holmes has ever sounded.
Sure there’s anger and anguish, but the power of Blind On A Galloping Horse is its message of internationalism, unity and the hope of better things to come.
Words: Chris Jones
David Holmes – Blind On A Galloping Horse
[Heavenly Recordings]
