Album Review: Warpaint - Warpaint

Warpaint exist within a rarefied air within both the hip indie scene and the wider music community. This LA-based quartet made waves with their 2010 debut The Fool and have been leaving the people wanting more ever since. They have created an atmosphere of intrigue by withholding music like a petulant girlfriend withholds intimacy. They have contributed to a few tracks here and there to whet our appetites as a part of their prolonged aural striptease. With their hype left to simmer for the past four years it is now time to release their sophomore record. Can this new album possibly live up to the expectations they have been cultivating in their absence?

For those who are unfamiliar with them, Warpaint make ambient post-punk with a gorgeous crystalline sheen. This style was very popular a few years back when bands like The XX hit the scene. What Warpaint do differently from those throwback pioneers is detach their muse from the 1980s and drag it kicking and screaming into the 21^st century. Throw in a trip-hop groove and a hint of psychedelic fog for flavour and you have a recipe for something interesting. When you see that it is producers Flood (U2, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins) and Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) behind the desk the sonic gumbo starts to make a little more sense.

Your enjoyment of Warpaint will hinge on your opinion of breathy female vocals, gurgling bass synths, and abstracted emotions. But luckily it is not all cool detachment and hipster bait. Beneath the layers of inhuman prosthesis beats a funky heart. In a different world ‘Hi’ could appear in a midnight dance club, just as all the punters are coming down in unison.

It is an excellent example of valuing mood over melody. From the outside it might seem chilly and remote. When you are wading knee-deep in their brooding tunes it is easy to be sucked in even if it is almost entirely devoid of hooks. Warpaint is an album designed to be taken in as a whole. You are meant to dive right in and get lost in the haze. This is both a band and an album that fly directly in the face of the modern music paradigm, where iTunes and Spotify do all the heavy lifting and real honest-to-goodness albums are seen as relics of a bygone era.

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: Love is to Die, Hi

Album Review: The Reverend Horton Heat - REV

Rockabilly as a fad comes and goes every few years, falling in and out of favour with the fickle tide of trends, but there has only ever been one Reverend Horton Heat. In their early days they got lumped in with the MTV alternative crowd but time has proven that to be an ill fit. These bad boys come from a world where surf guitar licks and big dirty double basses reign supreme. It’s hard to believe that their debut album, Smoke Em If You Got Em, was released nearly 24 years ago. REV is their brand new eleventh record and it defies time and popular trends. The band hasn’t changed significantly in their 29 years and their agenda remains the same: arrive, rock out like Jerry Lee Lewis with a firecracker up his arse, leave, repeat.

The album begins with a track called ‘Victory Lap’ and that is precisely what it feels like. It sets the tone of the album early, frantic and intense, before bleeding out into ‘Smell of Gasoline’. Everything is unashamedly retro and, frankly, cool as hell. REV contains many of the band’s hallmark themes; horror-themed come ons (‘Spooky Boots’), working class sagas (‘Hardscrabble Woman’), and paeans to the rockabilly lifestyle (‘Never Gonna Stop It’).

What is impressive is just how good and fresh this music sounds, even now in the band’s fourth decade. Rev and the boys always find a way to turn back the clock, rocking harder than many bands half their age. Their last few albums have leaned a little too heavily on slower country styles but the fire has been re-lit under them and they are out to prove their quality. Just compare a track like ‘Schizoid’ to any flash-in-the-pan youth act nowadays and there will be a decisive victor.

Back in 1990 The Rev and his crew became famous for their minor hit, ‘Psychobilly Freakout’. Now that we are in 2014 and they have eleven albums under their belts unfortunately nothing has changed in that regard. REV may not be the sort of album that wins over legions of new fans but for the converted it is a welcome addition to the band’s already stellar career.

Rating: A-

Recommended tracks: Smell of Gasoline, Schizoid, Spooky Boots