‘Love Rides A Dark Horse’ breaks new ground for Landry with contributions from fiddler Ross Holmes (Mumford & Sons, Bruce Hornsby), keyboard player Skylar Wilson (Andrew Combs, Rayland Baxter), and drummer Logan Matheny (Roman Candle, Rosebuds), the songs explore a more seductive, stripped-down sound built upon a hushed sense of intimacy that calls to mind Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. The album’s tattered narratives cast aside romanticism in favour of reality.

“In writing this album, I wanted to paint a vision of the prison of expectations that eat loving relationships at their core and can turn them into a mechanical farce. The premise through most of this album can be summed up by the title “Scripted Love”. The songs reveal characters trapped in scenes they didn’t create as much as rehearsed. Their roles are played through narratives either engrained or sold to them through: Hollywood, social norms, family, fairy tales, etc. Hung up on “what’s supposed to happen” over what’s happening. They find themselves disappointed with the reality of relationships due to their false idealisations. Love becomes a possession rather than a presence. This isn’t to say I don’t think that there aren’t millions of people living in harmonious, real, and loving relationships. I don’t happen to know an overwhelming amount of them, but I know they exist.” – Gill Landry