Tired of your Spotify playlists? The Purbalite is here to help with our Essential Listening series.
Rob Dickinson’s 2005 solo album, Fresh Wine for the Horses, follows the path of earlier artists like the late Jeff Buckley and Elliot Smith, providing a darker spin on many folk elements.
Many people are familiar with Dickinson’s influence on the music industry without actually knowing the name behind his talent. Besides being the nephew of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, he was also the guitarist and frontman for alternative British band Catherine Wheel.
Dickinson’s solo career, while incredibly impressive, remains severely underappreciated, as it only gets about 7,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
Most of his music focuses on messages on unrequited love and having to grieve the loss of love. Dickinson commonly compares his love to dark subjects, many of which are unexplained by human intelligence, including the depth of the night and the world’s inevitable end.
His solo career was briefly popularized by Billie Eilish’s cover of “The End of the World” off of the deluxe version of Fresh Wine for the Horses, but few people took the time to pay tribute to the original.
“The End of the World” is, without a doubt, one of the most phenomenal pieces of writing to have come out of the mid-2000s. The lyricism of the track directly reflects Dickinson’s complex emotions, but the bone-chilling instrumentals provide the highlight of the song.
Dickinson is one of the few artists who is able to create pristine imagery through his songs, which, in this track, really makes the listener feel like they are experiencing the end of the world.
However, Dickinson’s extraordinary sounds don’t just end with “The End of the World.” Instead, they are carried throughout the entire album
“Oceans” has a soft and vulnerable chorus, setting it apart from the sharper tones of many tracks on the album, while still harnessing Dickinson’s incredible talent.
One of the great moments on the album is how “Handsome” is immediately followed by “Bathe Away.”
“Handsome” is a more fast-paced tune, hiking the energy of the album while still maintaining the deep instrumentals and vocals. “Bathe Away” seamlessly brings the mood back down with a much more haunting and darker piece of art.
Dickinson’s album is concluded with the hidden track “Towering and Flowering,” an electric, multi-part melody that encapsulates the serene gloom of the album, which can only be described with the phrase “calamity made good.”
The album as a whole follows the concept of creating chaos, and then morphing it into a unique, evocative, and beautiful sound. This is truly what sets this album apart from other works, and it creates the awe-inspiring landmark that is Fresh Wine for the Horses.
