Search - Friends of Dean Martinez :: Lost Horizon

Best record yet!

King of Rawk | Austin, Texas | 01/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The band just gets better and better. This record is a bit different from the others as it is decidedly more "jammy." But not in the wanky Phish kind of way, more like the Thelonius Monk kind of way. Jam with a direction. Furthermore, Bill Elm's steel takes a bit of a rest while Mike Semple covers an array of different guitar tones and styling all over the record. The melodies are at their greatest on this record. It's a beautiful and painful record. I am always surprised how much emmotion FoDM can express in the absence of lyrics...especially concidering the sad state of lyrical prowess in indie music today.



Lost Horizon is a soundtrack to whatever you want it to be. It evokes arid desert dreams and congures an imagination that usually goes underutilized.



Lost Horizon is a wonderful record. It really showcases who the kings of instrumental rock are. (Ackem! Explosions in the Sky Ahckem!)



Buy this record. You won't be disappointed because it's really good. That's all you need to know."

A real treat - ANOTHER 2005 album from FODM

Bianchi Joe | Austin, TX United States | 12/10/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Lost Horizon continues FODM's "new" direction, and in my opinion it's a real breakthrough. The earlier-era lonesome spaghetti-western sound is long gone (although the recent Live at Club 2 features some great renditions of those earlier songs), and has been replaced with more ambitious songwriting and experimentation. Whereas their earlier releases used to feature mostly Bill Elm and his amazing console lap steel, this latest offering is all about Mike Semple's outrageously underrated guitar playing, and the band gels into a much more cohesive sound as a result. "Somewhere Over The Waves" is an organ-based mood piece that is FODM at their haunting best, one of those songs (like A Place In the Sun's "Broken Bell") that you wish was twice as long as it is. "Two Hundred Miles" has a fine sounding acoustic guitar, "Dawn" features an evocative nylon-string, and "All In the Golden Afternoon" is as expansive and epic as you can get. Only "Heart of Darkness" swerves into the cacaphony that (I think) mars some of their stuff; but the new version of Random Harvest's "Dusk" seems more fully realized somehow. The last piece, "Departure," harkens back to the band's earlier style, almost as a farewell. It's a great way to close the album. The vast majority of this album is beautiful and disquieting, and is by far my favorite since "On the Shore.""

I can't give a title that doesn't sound exaggerated

T. Laxson | Arizona | 03/31/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"While continuing their James Hilton theme (I still need to read some of his works), FODM departs a bit from the remarkably well-flowing, "concept album" feel of both On the Shore and Random Harvest to deliver us a more diverse collection of tunes. We get the power and grandeur of "Landfall", the space-rock of "Heart of Darkness", the sweeping beauty of "Somewhere Over the Waves", the desert relaxation of "Two Hundred Miles", and an acoustic reworking one of my all-time favorite songs "Dusk" (from Random Harvest); they even give us a couple of lounge pieces, "Departure" and "All in the Golden Afternoon", that you would expect to hear on Retrograde or Artardecer.

But don't worry, through all the changing moods FODM are still able to pack more atmosphere and emotion into every song than most bands can pack into a career's worth of albums."