A complete departure from Daniel Anderson's claim to fame, Idiot Pilot, The Ghost And The Grace delivers a folksy brand of facing life, death, and in between.

It was hard for me to sink my teeth into Behold! A Pale Horse for a lot of reasons — 99.9% of which didn't pertain to the album. But, every once in a while I would pop the disc into my CD Player and give it a go. (That's right, an actual CD player!) My first reaction was that I loved the first track, What Have I Done? Seemingly a lament of a hearse driver — it ends with my favorite thing in music: a bleak mantra stopped too abruptly for comfort. As the album carried on, though, later tracks tended to fade back and get lost in the backdrop of whatever I was doing. However, soon it seemed that with every listen a new song would stick out to me — making me consult the back of the CD so I could make a mental note. I soon realized that my initial reaction was due to my inability to sit still for 53 minutes and 43 seconds and the album proved to be an elegant, somewhat gritty composition of fine instrumentation and vocal tonalities.

The wide range of instruments (all played by Daniel) is a feat in itself. But, the amount of range within how those instruments are presented is another. On Behold! you'll get pumping tracks of energy such as A Pretty Good Place To Start as well as calmer bedtime tracks like Antlion and After All. These different soundscapes give lots of room for new instruments to shine — hammering in the departure that is this album. Every little toy — be it horn, piano, banjo, or string — gives each song something special all the while being tied together with harmony and catchy, examining lyrics.

I think the lyrics really do give something special to Behold! Songs like How Far You Go, My Shell Is Broken, and Genetics are not only pleasurable to listen to but beg for the listener to dissect and really throw themselves into the music. Each track has that quality which makes for your favorites to be quite indiscernible. Behold!'s closing track, After All, however can be called out as one of my favorites — seemingly paralleling What Have I Done? with its repetitious ending. The applause following that sounds like it's coming from a lonely back porch in the bayou is certainly well deserved.

Altogether, you have to hand it to any artist who throws him- or herself into the threshold of a new genre. Often times you won't see side projects like this — so able to be different. Too many times an alternative effort will just be a warped replica of the previous. Take Handsome, a project of Hemet's Peter Mengede or Fever Ray, project of The Knife's Karin Dreijer Andersson. While I love those albums I can't help but think they did it for no other reason than a new name.

But, Daniel completes his shift well. With Idiot Pilot being a heavier rock-electronica fusion it was hard to expect something as different as this. The album still dons the occasional and familiar spastic scream but overall this is a true folk effort and a great gasp of fresh air from an already fresh artist. Behold!