CD Review: Band of Horses' Cease to Begin

Maybe it is true that work comes before play. Band of Horses has showed their label they can sell an album in the Seattle indie fashion with Everything All the Time, so their sophomore album sounds like the band’s return home, to the style they probably wanted to pursue from the start.

The band’s recent move to Ben Bridwell’s native Carolinas may have exposed their roots a bit, and the result is pretty convincingly more southern-country than their first release. With more down-home harmonies and boot stomping thrown into the band’s steady mix of chiming electric guitars, crunchy distortion and big, reverb-soaked vocals, it’s more of a wide, flat landscape of exploratory trials than a jagged mountain of electric guitar rock.

But hospitable as those southerners are, BoH didn’t just drop a country album in our laps – Cease to Begin smooths the transition, opening with the gripping guitar power of “Is There a Ghost,” the album’s first release and a little bit of instant gratification for those looking for another “Funeral.” It’s followed by the equally powerful “Ode to LRC,” a distorted minor-chord strummer that provides a taste of darkness, possibly meant for us to keep in mind later when the album’s southern roots unfold.

The beautiful and chiming Seattle ballad “No One’s Gonna Love You” instantly became my favorite track on the disc, followed by the soft, melodic echoes of “Detlef Schrempf.” That’s when the band’s secret confession comes out.

Track 5 brings out the tambourine, the hand claps and what sounds a lot like boot heels stomping on a barn floor as it breaks open the SoCo bottle and douses everything with it, even employing low-side country backup vocals and talk of general stores and forks in the road. A live version on YouTube opens with a “Yee-haw!” Any reviewers who tossed out Shins comparisons over the first release are now giving “Gone for Good” another listen to see if the parallels hold. The funny part is Bridwell seems much more relaxed in this mode, hitting (read: slapping) higher notes with fervor. Whether this is the “real” band of horses or just another direction they’re exploring probably remains for future albums to reveal.

A sort of South-North salad exists in the album’s third quarter, combining the parts of Horses we’re already familiar with (reverb, slight distortion, rocking drums) with elements like fiddles, folk harmonies and down-home lyrical themes. The opening line “I’ll marry my lover” would have made me swipe off my hat in parody of shock, if I were wearing one. The boiling electric intro to “Cigarettes, Wedding Bands,” then, is almost shocking as it snaps us back to where we started: the old formula, allaying any suspicious of genre-hopping.

The future direction of this band is more mysterious now, it seems – will we see more of the South? Or I suppose the band could move even further east and take on some New York attitude. That was a joke. As long as the band is comfortable, the one sure thing is they’re making some darn good music.