Trent Dabbs: The Way We Look at Horses

Trent Dabbs
The Way We Look at Horses
Ready Set
2013-11-05

A musical workaholic, The Way We Look at Horses marks Trent Dabbs’s fourth solo album in as many years. (And that’s not counting 2010’s Transition EP or 2012’s debut album from Sugar & the Hi Lows, his collaboration with Amy Stroup, or that group’s holiday EP dropped later that year.) Given the short time between recordings, it isn’t surprising that little has changed Dabbs’s musical outlook since 2012’s Future Like Snow. Most of these songs strike at the same staid, steady musical vein that Dabbs has been mining for several years now. Nothing wrong with that — it is a style all his own: equal parts pop, folk, and rock, tied to a flair for production. Even though some of the album is a little heavy-handed, Dabbs mostly manages to feel loose and fun, especially on the rollicking “She’s My Destination” and the almost ’80s-rock “Confetti Girl”.

RATING 7 / 10