Next to heaven and hell, the land of the living probably seems pretty sterile in comparison. Orville Peck, who now sounds as if he’s spent time in all three, paints a stark image of snapping back to reality. “Who made time so slow?” he asks on “The Fall,” in a moment that feels like he’s finally speaking the same language as whoever’s across from him for the first time in a long time. The South African-born, cowboy-raised country singer has spent the better part of a decade making his eccentricities his identity. From the wistful, Eastwood-esque low notes on Pony to Bronco’s kick of the spurs leaving a trail of gold glitter behind him, the style was always half the substance. So what happens when he has to check those effects at the door? How much of the man is left if the mask is stripped off him?
It’s a question that Mule, Peck’s fourth studio record and a chronicle of his rehab and eventual sobriety, attempts to answer. If the cover art is any indication of how we find him from album to album, then this one is the singer at his most vulnerable. No spurs, no tassels, an up-close look at the warts his accent pieces usually cover up. But even if he’s traded in his boots for grippy socks, showmanship isn’t lost on Peck. If anything, finding ways to up the flair under strict conditions is a testament to what the performer can bring to the table emotionally. There are moments of faux triumph on the ornate “Big Ole House,” the immediatpost-breakupup high, to the premature celebration of sobriety on “Ring The Bell,” the latter jostling Peck before he even has a foot back in the real world. When you put his anthemic, charging temperament up against his most anguish-filled lyrics to date, the theatrics shine a light on the pain even as Peck is actively trying to cover it up.
Then there are the moments where he really lets us in on rock bottom. Peck really shines when he’s pulling back the curtain and giving a no-frills look at the moments in between heartbreak and addiction. “I hate it here, I don’t care, and I wanna die,” he rumbles on “Rehab Blues” in his signature rock-solid baritone. Maybe the highlight of the entire record, the track records a day in Peck’s life in his new normal, back on planet Earth, and loathing every second of it. As direct as he is, the song is a testament to how fine-tuned his pen has gotten, finding ways to hammer home the doom and gloom in what would otherwise be a to-do list set to chords. “I hear they’re serving eggs today, and sweet salvation’s on the way,” he continues after a saloon-swinging bridge. It’s substance-filled, but careful about how it styles itself.
Those ebbs and flows are really what makes Mule such a standout in Peck’s catalog, the singer now seeming confident enough in the character he’s created that there isn’t much need to dress it up anymore. Even when he’s leaving his ex in the dust on “Too Little, Too Late” or getting harrowingly jubilant in the throes of a bender on “Already Gone,” the galloping drums and poppy backup harmonies rarely interfere with the raw introspection being done here. It’s about as close to a Broadway production as Peck has gotten, which is really saying something. He can go from swinging on a chandelier to a soft soliloquy where he’s watching the tumbleweeds pass at the drop of a hat and make both feel like they’re driving the story forward.
Peck has always had a voice that’s felt larger than life, a relic of Johnny Cash or Elvis Presley reincarnated in ways those bygone eras couldn’t fully flesh out. It’s why the emotions he’s fleshing out on his latest effort seem to reverberate around producer Jay Joyce’s mixes, an instrument as booming as any percussion section or as wiry as the cry of an electric guitar. Sure of himself and his stylistic choices, Mule proves that the singer’s own perspective is as crucial to his music as anything else. The mask-off moment makes for his most well-rounded record to date.
