Record Review: Band of Horses - "Cease To Begin"

Rating: 5.2/10

Lesson number one: you can't, can't, can't, can't, can't force evolution.

Every region of America has its "sound," and every sound has a band that exemplifies (or pioneered) it. For me, New York's sound is defined by The Strokes. California's got Silversun Pickups. The Pacific Northwest (the American indie promised land) is home to the indie titan: Death Cab for Cutie. The South has...Kings of Leon. Bands are more defined by where they come from than most people (quite often including the bands themselves) realise. Sometimes, a band can make amazing leaps forward (or backward, depending on the band) simply by moving to another part of the country. Different regions afford different experiences; different experiences lead to the creation of different music.

Band of Horses, a band trying to work its way up the Sub Pop totem pole, recently made such a move - from the grey skies of Seattle to the buggy humid South. Their sophomore record "Cease to Begin", a follow-up to the excellent "Everything All The Time," seems to be a chronicle of this move. The stellar opening track, "Is There A Ghost" surges forth with the same intensity and verve of the best songs ("The Great Salt Lake" and "The Funeral") from "Everything." "Is There A Ghost" is a strong reminder of what made Band of Horses' first album so great, and it is the strongest argument for why the band should have stayed in Seattle.

As the record progresses, the band sounds progressively less like members of the Death Cab tradition, and more like a Kings of Leon-inspired southern outfit. The result is a record that is uneven, forced, and unnatural, as there are always elements of that Seattle sound trying to creep back into the medium (Ben Bridwell still sounds uncannily like Perry Farrell), but being forcibly suppressed in the name of development. "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands" exemplifies this conflict, a struggle between influences - the natural, instinctual one (Seattle), and the self-imposed, forced one (the South) - that inevitably cripples the record, song by song.

I don't know why Bridwell and Company decided to pack it up and leave Seattle. I just know that they belong there. The lazy, meandering quality of Southern indie rock does not fit with the tightly structured, purposeful indie rock of the Pacific Northwest. But for now, I'll give Band of Horses the benefit of the doubt and say they are a great band in the wrong town - they are too ingrained in the Seattle school to pull of the Kings of Leon style (hell, Kings of Leon can't even pull it off). But, pending a move back to Seattle, the future prospects for a record to match their debut looks bleak.


-PTC