Review Summary: Calling the right corner pocket.
Band of Horses have always been a singles act for me. When I heard 'The Funeral' off their 2006 debut I knew that if compilation albums survive, it would be destined to be included in something like 'The best 100 Indie anthems'. The album was charming but a little too scattershot, and that version of the band disintegrated soon after the release due to incompatible personalities. Principal songwriter Ben Bridwell assembled a new line-up and the sophomore 'Cease to begin' seemed to be step forward. They found their groove with sequencing and created a more consistent set of songs, with a particularly great opening four tracks. I felt they were on the cusp of becoming one of the venerated acts of the scene.
Around this time the band relocated from Seattle to Bridwell's home base in South Carolina. After a bit of a gap and some seat shuffling, the band released 'Infinite Arms', and despite a Grammy nomination, I felt the band had moved away from their strengths. They sounded a little too grounded, maybe leaning more into the milder country rock territory of veterans like the Jayhawks. While it was all very competent, I longed for them to soundtrack spinning on a lawn instead of a structured and tasteful line dance.
Bridwell, in interviews for this album, has alluded to some sort of impostor syndrome in the middle of his career. With bigger budgets and more expectations, he surrounded himself with top class studio musicians, and listened to more outside influences. He even saw himself a kid who made mixtapes and knew nothing about writing songs. In 2016 there was an attempt to regain his voice, but I think it’s now in 2022 that he’s found it again. That this silver lining comes with the dissolution of his marriage and the effects of the pandemic on his life is one of those big cosmic jokes that I think we all can relate to.
On the wryly titled 'Things are great', Bridwell once again inhabits that outside space where his vocal rides like a angelic passenger on a jet plane, and at times ascends to dance with the solar flare seen only from the vantage of the clouds. He's more integrated with the band performance and I think this is when they sound most powerful.
Opener 'Warning Signs' highlights just that shade more Beach Boys in their Byrds. The guitars tremble a bit more, it's fuller, and the vocal comes out the corner slapping its gloves together with resolve. There's a muscular bassline egging on the messy guitar solo that follows the breaks, and that urgency sweeps you up. Despite Bridwell's stratospheric tone, the lyrics don't hide behind airy metaphors; rather they're content to be a plainspoken statement on coping and inherited issues.
The band explores a more rambling, relaxed sound in 'Tragedy of the Commons', but the song still winds with the energy of a sun-drenched lizard. The spikier verse slows into a cliffhanger, then a lush delicate chorus with brushed chords and gentle drums supporting that dense vocal shade. They slow it right down in the last third, but all these shifts feel vital and serve the song.
There's not really a weak track on the album, even if they never quite reach the heights of their strongest early work. It's all just excellent execution and satisfying songcraft. This might also be the most cohesive of their albums; it finishes with a closer that somehow makes the idea of a town that smells of cow dung sound majestic and monumental. 'Coalinga' is full wall of sound with stomping drums and sheen-y backing vocals and guitars as strings. Bridwell, as he's fond of saying of late, is finally calling the shots. Things aren't great, but they are ok.
