What do you get when you combine the Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, A Healthy Dosage of excellent drumming, a sea of guitar effects, Dream Pop, and a hint of Shoegaze? You get Warpaint. Their 2010 album "The Fool" is probably one of the best, if not the best album that I have heard in my life. This is not an overstatement or hype by any means. Warpaint has done something phenomenal, and should be proud that they have done something truly amazing with this album.
To be honest, I didn't "really" know about Warpaint, until last week when I was watching the Coachella Live stream on YouTube and something told me that I should be watching this live stream. So I did, and I heard one of the songs, and an alarm bell went off in my head "Oh! I didn't know that they played this song." I was probably fooled by the harsh sounding name, but I knew who they were all along.
Name aside, Warpaint is one of the most exciting bands that I have heard this year, and I just can't wait to see what else they have in store. I have a feeling that more people are going to learn about their music, and enjoy it. So let me say this; Warpaint, if any of you happen to stumble upon my little blog, and read this album review, keep up the good work! Don't stop creating awesome music just because you gained new fans!
Warpaint is basically, the modern combination of every band that I love in my music library. Everything just songs so complete when I listen to Warpaint. Instead of listening to a playlist with 5 different bands, I can just play Warpaint all afternoon and be quite satisfied.
Track By Track Analysis
Set Your Arms Down
This one starts off slow, but the bass and vocals makes you want to keep listening. The vocals are so gentle and so powerful at the same time. Its almost like a paradox, how can something this mellow exist with such powerful music? It almost feels like this song can break in two at any moment, and shatter like glass. Set Your Arms Down is a Great way to start off this album.
Warpaint
"Warpaint" is the prime example of time slowing when you play this album. I think that this one could start a little bit better, but I always forget about the beginning when this song gets to the 2:00 mark. Everything after that is just golden. Just listen to the guitar work on this one. It is almost hypnotizing when you listen to it. Listen to the mini solo at 5:16.
Undertow
I haven't had this album for a long time (4) days, but I'm always playing this song no matter what I'm doing. I play it in class, I play it when I'm typing, I play it when I'm walking around, I just play this song whenever I'm doing anything. I don't really care if it is almost 6 minutes long ((5:53) to be exact). I just love this song. I know that this will be in my "Top Tracks" in my listening library very soon, if not by next week. I love the tempo changes in this song. I lost count, but it really doesn't matter when the tempo changes, but how it effects the song. I might like this song so much because of all of these tempo changes. Its like eating a chocolate chip cookie, you find something new with every bite.
Bees
To me, this song is an extension of Undertow. Just change up the lyrics, take out the tempo changes, and add even more guitar, and then you get this song. I should point out that the Drumming is very good on this song. It goes right along with whatever the 2 guitars are doing. The high point of this song is the post noise break epicness of 2:35. That makes the song for me.
Shadows
I don't really like this opening; it hides the fact that this is a great song. That aside, "Shadows" moves really fast when you listen to it, despite it being one of the "slower" songs on the album. I could even go on to say that this is the ending of the last song. That could work, but even if I was wrong, this is a really nice song. I like the occasional piano highlights engrained this one.
Composure
When this song starts playing, I automatically think "Cocteau Twins". Let me say this now; Warpaint is this generations version of the Cocteau Twins. That might be a long shot, but I honestly think that this is true. Just look at the guitars, the vocal delivery, and the powerful sound. It might not be explicitly stated when you compare both bands directly, but the comparison holds its weight.
Baby
For me, this song starts off the second half of the record. It is a lot slower than the previous song. And it just sounds pretty good. It is a simple song really, and I'm not going to try to over analyze it too much.
Majesty
Majesty is the longest song on the album (6:35). It is one of the strongest songs on the album, and it sounds great after baby. I love how this song gradually builds up and and just sounds so complete at around 2:22. The bass plays an important role of keeping the song together in this song because everything else "slows down" in this song. To me, this song feels a little bit like My Bloody Valentine, but that might just be me.
Lissie's Heart Murmur
This song is musically a combination of the last two songs. Its slow, it has the intensity of the first half of the album, it is a work of art, and everything just sounds complete. Like Baby, I don't want to over analyze this because it is great as it is.
As a whole, "The Fool" is a game changer, in the genre and in the modern music world as a whole. But, it it isn't quite prefect yet. If Warpaint wants a prefect album, they have to work on beginning and ending songs effectively. If they do that, and just incorporate everything that they did in this album, they are in line to make another amazing album. I know that they can do it.
