Follow-up blends elements for seasoned second album
Published 10:29 am Thursday, January 16, 2014
Warpaint’s second album is the perfect blend of haunting, rhythmic and dreamy musicality.
The Los Angeles-based all-female quartet show considerable poise and experience on their self-titled followup to 2010’s “The Fool.”
From the opening, bass-heavy notes of “Intro,” the rhythm section leads the way. Though the album is heavily saturated with keys and atmospheric, psychedelic sounds, it’s grounded in a solid, but rarely overpowering beat.
My first impression of the album, listening to the nearly two-minute “Intro,” was that the bass part sounded inspired by “Lotus Flower” off Radiohead’s “The King of Limbs.” Oddly enough, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich mixed “Warpaint.”
Like the on “The King of Limbs,” the rhythm section shines on “Warpaint.”
Lead vocalist Emily Kokal told NME the band set aside the guitars featured heavily in 2010 debut “The Fool” in favor of R&B and rap influences.
“It’s more than classic guitars. We’re into rap and R&B things that have drum machines and ambience, music that’s more than standard rock,” she told NME.
Most of the songs were reportedly written through jams during sound checks before concerts, and it shows on an album that floats forward in dreamy atmospherics.
At about 51 minutes, the album doesn’t short listeners, and it doesn’t fall into repetition or lulls.