Ben Nichols—Last Pale Light in the West

This year Ben Nichols, the singer and songwriter at the helm of the alt country band Lucero, released a stunning solo EP called Last Pale Light in the West. Chuck Donovan and I were both pretty wowed by this recording, and it only continued to grow on us. (Chuck and I compare notes quite a bit!) Without a doubt my favorite recording of the year. Nichols wrote all of the songs based on the characters that appear in Cormac McCarthy's bleak and blood-soaked novel Blood Meridian about a group of scalp hunters responsible for massacres along the Mexico border in 1849 and 1850.

The songs are haunting mini-masterpieces, and Ben Nichols' gravelly voice along with the sparse accompaniment of pedal steel are the perfect match for the material.