Orville Peck isn’t the first rhinestone cowboy to be laid low by the temptations of Sin City. Peck pegs the start of his downward spiral to the eve of his tour supporting 2022’s Bronco, the album that elevated him into the major leagues. A chance encounter with an ex-lover kicked off a bender that ended in an overdose, leaving his management to issue an ultimatum: If he didn’t go to rehab, they’d sever ties, right at the moment he seemed poised for stardom. He grudgingly acquiesced, but he secretly told himself he’d use again as soon as he left treatment. He didn’t break his promise to himself. Peck’s hedonism continued until he experienced, as so many addicts do, a moment of clarity, a morning-after revelation that set him on the path straight to Mule.
Mule—Peck’s third record for a major label and second for Warner—is a song cycle tracing the Johannesburg-born singer’s descent into darkness and return to the light. Its narrative mirrors the tale he tells in public. After an introductory a cappella hymn featuring Emmylou Harris, Noah Cyrus, and Allison Russell singing an “old tune” about “how men chase their darkness away,” the song titles alone sketch out the main points: Peck discovers himself all alone in a “Big Ol’ House” since his lover is “Already Gone”; before long, he’s he’s “Run Out of Road.” The album ends with the recognition that he’s a “Mule,” a hybrid being that’s half man, half performer, destined to live and sing as a costumed character he invented when stardom seemed little more than a fantasy.
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A more conventional artist might have taken a more austere route for his autobiographical tale, accompanying his dead-of-night confessions with strummed acoustic guitar and a deadly serious mien. But Peck’s newly discovered self-awareness extends beyond his sobriety. He recognizes that his musical strengths are inherently theatrical, as indebted to cabaret as country music. Right as he’s laying his soul bare on “Rehab Blues,” he slides into a barrelhouse middle eight, a left turn that transforms the song from an AA share into a western saloon. Part of grappling with his pain entails recognizing that he is, at heart, an entertainer. Even when singing about his darkest moments, he still needs to put on a show.
And Mule is a hell of a show: a tight 38-minute romp where the probing ballads are punctuated by bright, bejeweled hooks that could’ve been AM radio hits in an alternate universe. “Already Gone” is punchy power pop that swaggers like prime Elvis Presley; “Too Little, Too Late” decorates its rockabilly kick in Nashville spangle; the jangling “Cowboy Heart” sounds like Glen Campbell covering a forgotten R.E.M. song from their IRS years. Producer Jay Joyce, who helmed Bronco but sat out the overblown 2024 duets album Stampede, gives these accents ostentatious flair yet helps keep the tone even-keeled, so neither the roiling melodrama of “The Fall” nor the stark denouement of “Mule” feel out of place; they’re earned moments of darkness that wind up reflecting the hope of their surrounding songs.
