John Ross hasn’t been hiding, exactly, but the Wild Pink mastermind has often taken cover behind music that evokes other music. He’s an inspired enough writer that his personality has tended to show through anyway, though there was always a sense that we weren’t getting the full picture of what Ross could do. Wild Pink’s latest album clears that up.
Dulling the Horns is the band’s most distinctive release so far. It is beholden neither to the hushed piano arrangements and whispery vocals of 2022’s ILYSM, which Ross finished writing after he was diagnosed with cancer (he has since recovered), nor to the lush, indie-adult alternative sound of 2021’s A Billion Little Lights. If there’s an antecedent in the band’s catalog, it’s Wild Pink’s self-titled first album, from 2017—but more visceral and direct this time around. Dulling the Horns is a guitar record, though it’s not one that relies on riffs. Rather, the group’s fifth full-length is brimming with immense growling textures that ebb and flow, creating space in the songs as often as they fill it. That approach seems to have emboldened Ross to let his lyrical idiosyncrasies loose. He’s droll here, and sometimes offhandedly profound as he comes at the stories and sentiments in his lyrics from unexpected vantages.
That’s most evident on album opener “The Fences of Stonehenge,” where layers of crisp guitar surround Ross’s voice as he turns well-worn platitudes on their heads. “There’s a light that no one else can touch,” he begins, before undercutting the image like some fussy aesthete: “When I saw it in your face / I thought it was a little much.” A song later, on “Eating the Egg Whole,” he offers a meditation on impermanence through the metaphor of Michael Jordan’s basketball career and sports teams changing names or locations, delivering lyrics in a rush while a pulsing bassline pushes through washes of crackling guitar.
There are elements of Wild Pink’s sound from previous albums. Breathy saxophone from Landlady’s Adam Schatz wafts through “Disintegrate” and an anthemic piano part from by David Moore courses along on “Sprinter Brain.” Mike “slo mo” Brenner adds bittersweet pedal steel guitar licks to “Cloud or Mountain,” in which Ross name-checks Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh and mentions a disrupted Mob murder plot like it was a playdate gone wrong. Yet overdriven electric guitars are the primary focus throughout Dulling the Horns: avalanches of huge, crumbly chords that give these songs a certain heft. The sense of immediacy they bring focuses attention on Ross, who alternates between murmurs and more robust singing—a quiet-loud dynamic that simultaneously complements and contrasts with the guitars.
The effect is powerful and compelling on these 10 songs, which easily rank among Wild Pink’s best work. If Ross has sometimes tended to blend in on past albums, Dulling the Horns finds him ready to stand out, and it’s a wonder to behold.
Eric R. Danton has been contributing to Paste since 2013. His work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe and Pitchfork, among other publications. He writes Freak Scene, a newsletter about music in Western Massachusetts and Connecticut.
