Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!

In Canadian singer/songwriter Corb Lund's constant quest to stretch the boundaries of country while keeping a foot in his musical roots, he locked onto an unusual theme for his fifth album: the connection between horses and their riders, seldom explored outside of cowboy culture. He moves seamlessly through different eras and settings, inhabiting an impressive array of characters along the way. He homes in on what feels like a Civil War framework for the self-explanatory "I Wanna Be a Cavalryman," while the man whose mercenary soldiers go rogue in "A Leader on Losing Control" seems to hail from an earlier time. The rodeo rider at the center of "The Horse I Rode in On" feels like a more modern character, but he could really hail from any era of the rodeo. Lund is willing to expand the boundaries of his concept too, allowing for everything from the horse soldier's descendant running covert operations in El Salvador ("Student Visas") to the repentant Mormon beseeching one of his religion's figureheads ("Brother Brigham Brother Young"). But his songwriting chops are so incisive that you're willing to follow wherever he goes.