Wow, who is Dan Snyder? Listening to Buffalo Souls is like riding a spaceship. It all takes off with the first track Beneath Our Veins. And then it progresses from there. There are little sounds that sparkle throughout this recording. They are like fireflies or planetary rings that shine. If you listen to in-ear headphones you can really hear them as Buffalo Souls is filled with nuance as it is brimming with cinematic explosions. It is a complex album with many textures and sonic landscapes and this is the kind of music that I gravitate too. It has a lot of room for exploration. For instance, in Mt Rainer, the thundering piano brings fourth the little layered voices and beautiful percussion that sounds like an extraterrestrial has landed. Still this is a marriage of electronic and acoustic sounds. There are instances where I marvel at the arrangement of the drums like in So Close where they are made to sound distant. His wet vocals float around like blankets of mists longing for a resolution in a world filled with maybes.
The floating feeling is consistent throughout the albums. And this is what excellent albums should be about-distinctive style or theme and coherence. The Herd sounds pastural and angelic. If this is the style that he is developing then I say he has a chest of golden sounds. If he continues in this path then I will pursue in collecting his albums as Buffalo Souls created an aesthetic impact in me. And in the closing track getting started, it feels like the journey is just enough. It makes you long for another one, yet the experience is satisfying-not to grandiose and not too humble.
Dan Snyder has a gift of beautiful songwriting. And I think his edge is his being able to use his voice as another instrument. And this is refreshing in this decade where every singer sounds like the last guy you’ve heard.