Cory Hanson

Cory Hanson lit out a few years back with a solo slip that found him shying away from the thunder and intricacy of his work in Wand. The band’s albums had just begun to emerge from a glam-struck garage model and wind ever wider into the waters of prog. Carving out his own space, Hanson hushed the room and offered up The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo, an album that was more akin to private press folk records than to the towering tangle that Wand offered. Its follow-up leaned further into country and made things more of a band affair, but still, it seemed his solo works were about finding solace in stillness. So, its a bit of a surprise to wade into what’s on offer among (the unfortunately titled) Western Cum.

From the first moments on “Wings,” that sense of quietude is broken. The band, now grown to a quartet pickup the pieces of shattered country that permeated its predecessor and glue them back together into a jagged choogler that feeds its fire on volume. The debauched grandeur of the American underbelly is at the heart of the record — a Cormac McCarthy tale directed by David Lynch. The tar and temptation of the West frame the record, desperate corners of Americana cut into grease-stained dioramas under Hanson’s leering eye. There are moments of sweetness that echo back to the time of Pale Horse Rider, like the pedal steel and primrose moments of “Twins,” but it’s only moments later that the midday sun rises once more to scorch the senses as the listener stumbles through the culmination of Hanson’s opus. The record’s still a far cry from Wand’s calloused creep, but it’s a schism in Cory’s solo signature — a corrupted new trajectory that’s left the bedroom behind in favor of existential vice.

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