BAND OF HORSES

'Cease to Begin'

Another band I didn't catch the first time around, Band of Horses sophomore release, 'Cease to Begin', seems to be one of the most eagerly-awaited indie-kid new releases of 2007. The band really won a lot of folks over w/ the 'Neil Young/Crazy Horse meets Big Star' sound that was the hallmark of their 2006 debut, 'Everything All the Time' and justifiably so. Said album was the perfect mix of big, lush sounding indie-rock w/ moments of melancholy alt-folk...you could here everything from the aforementioned influences w/ some Beach Boys, Byrds and even late-era Hüsker Dü thrown in for good measure.

Upon first listen, I was really impressed w/ how beautiful sounding the album was, but that was w/out the frame of reference of their previous release. While the overall sound is still amazing, this album is sparse, plodding and a little less rocking in totality. Now, my favorite tracks 'Ode to LRC', 'No One's Gonna Love You', 'Marry Song', and 'Is There A Ghost' are strong enough to keep the praise lauded on them intact...they just don't make for an entire 'four-star' album (if I actually had an official rating scale). It's almost a 50/50 split on tracks that are fantastic and just okay.

Still worth checking out for yourself once it's released on 8-Oct, but in the meantime, try out a track in the sample area and go ahead and purchase their debut already available on iTunes and the like.