"It's impossible to separate Nina Nastasia's first album in 12 years from its tumultuous backstory. On 26 January 2020, she finally left an abusive 25-year relationship with her manager and collaborator Kennan Gudjonsson. The following day he took his own life. Those events don't so much cast a shadow over Riderless Horse, written and recorded in the aftermath, as permeate every second of it. It's an unsettlingly raw album, the sparse instrumentation - Nastasia's soft voice and acoustic guitar, recorded, as ever, by Steve Albini - making her lyrics all the more stark and powerful".