ALBUM REVIEW: Bonny Light Horseman Packs Double Album With Tender Songs Transcending Time

Double albums traditionally signal a newly ambitious and confident band, be it historical landmarks like The Beatles’ White Album and The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street or a more modern example like Big Thief’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. Usually bands take many years, even decades, to reach this landmark. But it’s taken just four years for Bonny Light Horseman — the supergroup made up of Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman — to get here.

But with decades of experience between the three as soloists and in other bands, it’s a task the trio are clearly up to. The 20 songs of Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free radiate the quiet confidence of three expert musicians clearly attuned to their group dynamics. Opener “Keep Me on Your Mind” does not rely on dramatic moves or surprise departures to capture attention, instead luxuriating in the space Mitchell, Johnson, and Kaufman have carved out for themselves. “Will you keep me on your mind / I’m keeping you on mine,” croons Mitchell over a barely there beat on the lilting acoustic number.

In contrast to many of history’s most famous double albums, Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free represents more of a refinement than a reinvention for Bonny Light Horseman. The three-piece continues to center gorgeous harmonies and focus on universal themes like love, desire, and the cruel, beautiful passing of time. There are some exciting sonic switchups: A crunchy guitar solo and guttural cries of longing spring up on “When I Was Younger,” while “Hare and Hound” stands out for bringing the trio’s bluegrass influences to the forefront. However, their template sound remains acoustic folk-rock and Americana.

Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free, Bonny Light Horseman’s third project since their 2020 debut (ND story), was recorded in an old Irish pub in a tiny coastal village in County Cork. Listening to the music the band made there, you can picture them huddled around their instruments playing to a small, enthusiastic crowd (some of these songs were recorded in front of a live audience at the Levis pub). These are songs about deep feelings of connection that have been alternately deepened and weakened by time’s arrow.

Bonny Light Horseman, from left, Josh Kaufman, Anaïs Mitchell, and Eric D. Johnson. (Photo by Jay Sansone)

On the endlessly generous “Singing to the Mountain,” something as small as a single old photograph proves revolutionary, offering a gateway to a vibrant, youthful past. While on “Lover Take It Easy,” vignettes from the past are used to emphasize the enduring vitality of a relationship in the present (“Everywhere you go love, I will always be / Down by Sally Garden, young and wild and free.”) On “Don’t Know Why You Move Me,” the trio captures the kismet nature of our most meaningful relationships, how their ability to endure seems beyond explanation, and how the unexplainability of it all only enhances the magic.

“Old Dutch” stands out as the album’s most immediately affecting statement — and one of the best tunes the Bonny Light Horseman members have penned to date. Mitchell sings of pulling the petals off a wildflower, asking “Do you love me? Or love me not?”, capturing both childlike innocence and the deep instability that comes with loving a “wild heart.” After a sparse acoustic first leg of minimalist drumming and simple piano progressions, the song builds to a communal anthem. It all culminates in an admission that captures the entire album’s ethos: “You know that you move me and I don’t know why.” Sometimes we don’t have to interrogate why we feel toward others the way we do, it’s simply enough to know these relationships continue to bear fruit.

Bonny Light Horseman’s Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free is out June 7 on Jagjaguwar.