Unfortunate though true, from great pain comes great art.

 

That's exactly what Nic Goodson, leader and frontman for atmospheric indie rockers Sleepy Horses, experienced shortly upon the release of the Athens, Ga-based band's second LP, Somewhere Out West, Lonesome For You, in 2006.

 

In no short turn, Goodson lost his band - and then very nearly a whole lot more.

 

"Everything was falling apart in my personal life and with the band," Goodson says.  "People all around me were acting like assholes.  I felt like I was losing my band, so I was losing my entire life.  In the end, I should have just fired them all rather than take it out on myself."

 

The emotional torrents unleased by what went on before his chemically-induced coma and what happend right after, coupled with Goodson's musical journey of rebirth and recovery, lies at the core of Sleepy Horses' triumphant new album, The Golden Light, due out later this year.

 

Goodson began work on the record while rehabilitating in his hometown of Weatherford, Texas in early 2007 following his near-death experience, pickin up the first guitar he owned and playing it to see if his hands would be able to work as they had before.

 

"when I was first recuperating, I couldn't walk," Goodson says.  "I was bed-ridden and I had to teach myself how to walk again.  It was exactly like a really bad move, a horribly cliched movie.  I'm going to die, I die, and then I come back to life.  But once I realized I could play and move, I immediately focused on writing and getting another band back together."

 

To that end, Goodson enlisted the aid of new Sleepy Horses saddle mates David Forker on drums and Coy King on bass for a series of shows following Goodson's return to Athens in early 2007.  Shortly thereafter, Goodson and the rest of Sleepy Horses -- along with new bassist Just Gregg -- cut The Golden Light during a breakneck, four-day session with engineer Kyle Spence at Spence's in-home studio in Athens.

 

"I knew of all his tech work with Dinosaur Jr.," Goodson says of Spence, who also mans the drums for Athens' legendary har rock heavies, Harvey Milk.  "I wanted a sound with more weight to it for this record than the previous ones.  I didn't want it too polished and Spence is way more rock than we'll ever be."

 

The result of Spence's heavier influences helped Sleepy Horses forge a dark and heavy mix of West Texas twang and UK-tinged noise pop on The Golden Liht, and album whose densely layered sound and emotional gravitas make it akin such records as Richerd and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out The Light and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.

 

Life, death, hope, loss are central characters whose stories play-out through The Golden Light, an affectingly personal, though hauntingly universal, collection of songs, including the heart-rending "When I Go," a Buddy Holly-esque tune Goodson started writing just as things begun to spin out of control in the band.

 

"That song is about a friend of mine in Asheville," Goodson explains.  "She walked in and saw exactly what was going on in the band at the time, how screwed up it was and how trapped I was.  She attempted to pull me back from the ledge, basically.  That short conversation was the only time during the whole experience where I felt good.  So, I wrote that song for her."

 

On "Echoes," another stellar track from The Golden Light, Sleepy Horses whip its unique brand of desert-laden psychedelia into a transcendent spiritual paean that burns with the fire and intensity of the early-U2 records Boy and October.

 

"Echoes' started off as a mariachi tune," Goodson says, "and it got morphed into something else that was a little more Daniel Lanois and U2.  Sometimes I fear I'm losing too much of that West Texas feel from my earlier songs, but these days, it's getting harder for me to even classify my own stuff.  It's a blend of so many styles and influences."

 

Those influences started at an early age for Goodson, whose great uncles were all members of the acclaimed honky tonk outfit the Red River Boys.  As a child in Weatherford, Goodson first learned banjo and mandolin at the age of 9, then country guitar as a teen.

 

"As a kid I learned all these old, vintage country songs," Goodson recalls, "and anytime we had a family reunion, we'd always get together afterwards and just jam.  There was social time, then there was music time -- and all the gear would come out and everybody would play."

 

Goodson played in a string of cow-punk bands as a teen, including The Stuck Ups, Desorden and The Drowning Creek Boys, before moving to Lubbock, Texas and studying geography at Texas Tech.  A class project dealing with the science and music of the Dust Bowl led Goodson back into music.

 

After graduation, Goodson formed Sleepy Horses and recorded a self-titled debut in 2004 that was principally a solo album, except for a few backing parts provided by the Thrift Store Cowboys.  Three months later, Goodson then amassed a reconstituted version of Sleepy Horses, including then-wife Brandi, and headed east, relocating to the college rock mecca of Athens, Ga.

 

Sleepy Horses made quick friends in Athens, drawing praise for the band's stunning soundscapes and stirring live shows.  But the cracks were already forming in the band's personnel and foundation.  By the time Goodson and Sleepy Horses recorded and released Somewhere Out West, Lonesome For You, those fissures had become chasms.

 

"I just had tunnel vision, "Goodson says.  "I'm still like that with the band, yet I know now that I'm not going to let whatever's going on with whomever I'm around mess up the band again.  I'm just going to keep going.  Before I though, well, I had a good run and now I'll check out."

 

Goodson also offers a parting shot to his former spouse and bandmates on the stinging "Say It Out Loud," a hissing rocker from The Golden Light in which he spits out such thinly-veiled lyrics as "Go West with you Yes-man, maybe/So, say it out lout, say it out loud," backed by a singing guitar riff and swelling mounds of feedback and distortion.

 

Through the release of The Golden Light, Goodson feels that Sleepy Horses has fully bridged the emotional divide, closing the door on a troubled chapter in the band's past - at the same time opening the path to a gleaming, limitless future.

 

"The guys around me know everything I've been through," Goodson says, "Justin I've known from Texas, so he knows exactly why I'm here and what I'm for.  He's here for the same things and he's on board.  And Dave, he saw everything that happened, so he knows.

 

"It's a much more wholesome situation, but not in an 'Ozzie and Harrfiet'-type deal," he adds, "They know that this is my band, I've been through enough shit and we're not going to do this again.

 

"I'm not going to throw it all away.  It could just be me by myself, it could be a rotating cast of players, but Sleepy Horses is the group I play this certain kind of music and these certain songs with.  It's whoever around me, that's Sleepy Horses.  Once I realized that, I was free."