Album Review: Orville Peck, Bronco

Orville Peck rides high and true on Bronco, his second full-length album and most expansive to date. 

It finds the masked musician roving through country music’s many backroads and thoroughfares: the genre’s shifted through countless sounds over the years, and Bronco’s 15 songs forage from across the eras. “C’mon Baby, Cry” flips the script on tear-in-my-beer longing, while “Kalahari Down” finds shape as a sweeping confessional ballad. “Hexie Mountains” conveys a deep vulnerability with stripped-back bluegrass, while “Any Turn” lets Peck’s band turn out a full-on barnburner.

While the album bucks and twists through styles, it’s guided by Peck’s octave-leaping voice, capable of mountainous mumbles and soaring peaks alike. That and its sense of vulnerability: across its ranging musical touchstones, the album features some of Peck’s most confessional sentiments—songs like the paired-down “City of Gold” or the reflective “Iris Rose” feel like the deepest peek behind the mask that he’s given. 

So Peck’s love of country’s decade-spanning nuances are all crystal clear here, carried across a wide span of sounds that feel both well lived and lively. That he can fit them all into an album as consistently compelling as Bronco feels like a bonafide triumph.

Bronco was released April 8, 2022 on Columbia Records.
Listen to it here.