Mock Orange is a band that refuses to quit. Having existed since the late-’90s, the band has weathered the collapse of labels, changes in its membership, and pressed on undeterred. For its first album in five years, Put The Kid On The Sleepy Horse, the band has joined Topshelf Records and crafted an album that feels like another step for the Indiana band. The A.V. Club is premiering “Nine Times,” the first song from Put The Kid On The Sleepy Horse, which sees Mock Orange meld the two opposing halves of its sound. “Nine Times” has the angular, quirky nature of its debut, Nines & Sixes, but retains alt-country inclinations that popped up time and again on 2011’s Disguised As Ghosts. Guitarist-vocalist Joe Asher says of the song:
“Nine Times” was the last song we wrote and recorded for Put The Kid On The Sleepy Horse. We wrote it after the rest of the album was already done. We wanted to try to invert the normal song structure and make the choruses smaller than the verses by stripping out the guitars and adding mandolin in the choruses but keeping the beat grooving. It seemed to turn out nicely. We like how the song feels like the part of the country that we are from. Evansville is a weird weird semi-southern place even though it’s considered to be in the mid-west.
Put The Kid On The Sleepy Horse will be released on May 20 via Topshelf Records and is available for pre-order now.