Music > Album Reviews
Warpaint // Warpaint
29/04/14
If Warpaint were actually living by their name and daubing their faces with this, their eponymous second album, ready to charge across the battlefield, they might well find themselves shot in the arse as they bent down to tie their shoelaces. It’s not that it’s an album completely devoid of concentration or awareness, but it certainly isn’t going to win any Mel Gibson points for running bare-chested into a fight to the death. After a very well-received debut – by myself included – I SO wanted to love this album. Why so “meh”, I hear you say? Well, it’s not that the tracks don’t succeed played on their own; new single, ‘Biggy’ employs a slightly arrhythmic synth bassline and evolves into a decent beat-based track. Album track ‘Disco // very’ is a funky little bass-heavy number. However, they sleepwalk through the majority of the album, meaning listening to it in its entirety makes you feel like you’ve taken a tranque dart to the neck. They produced the record themselves, along with the watchful eye of Flood (PJ Harvey), and the resounding result seems to be that they’ve tried their darndest not to wake us. The vocals aren’t as present as the first album, there’s little in the way of light and shade, and I find myself making excuses for them. Maybe I’m listening to it wrong? In the wrong place? At the wrong volume? It might fit for a lone, be-headphoned walk across untrodden snow, but I’d take a sharper weapon into battle. 5/10 Emma R. Garwood
If Warpaint were actually living by their name and daubing their faces with this, their eponymous second album, ready to charge across the battlefield, they might well find themselves shot in the arse as they bent down to tie their shoelaces. It’s not that it’s an album completely devoid of concentration or awareness, but it certainly isn’t going to win any Mel Gibson points for running bare-chested into a fight to the death. After a very well-received debut – by myself included – I SO wanted to love this album. Why so “meh”, I hear you say? Well, it’s not that the tracks don’t succeed played on their own; new single, ‘Biggy’ employs a slightly arrhythmic synth bassline and evolves into a decent beat-based track. Album track ‘Disco // very’ is a funky little bass-heavy number. However, they sleepwalk through the majority of the album, meaning listening to it in its entirety makes you feel like you’ve taken a tranque dart to the neck. They produced the record themselves, along with the watchful eye of Flood (PJ Harvey), and the resounding result seems to be that they’ve tried their darndest not to wake us. The vocals aren’t as present as the first album, there’s little in the way of light and shade, and I find myself making excuses for them. Maybe I’m listening to it wrong? In the wrong place? At the wrong volume? It might fit for a lone, be-headphoned walk across untrodden snow, but I’d take a sharper weapon into battle. 5/10 Emma R. Garwood