Warpaint

Oh, if only Deafheaven were putting out a new album this year :P

Oof. I@n Coh3n really didn't like this.

Even those sympathetic to what Warpaint are doing have all but admitted this album lacks hooks, grooves, or even a pulse most of the time

I've only given it one cursory listen but it did seem very lethargic and druggy. That's kind of their vibe, tho.

I've listened to it a few times. There are some songs that feel like filler to me (Go In, off the top of my head), but I'm happy with most of it! Definitely fewer guitars than I'd been hoping for though.

I initially thought the review was especially and unnecessarily mean-spirited but then I remembered how much I hate this band

Why do you hate this band?

that pfork review is pretty brutal.

album is 'nice' but I feel like it's a little too nice. and I dislike the 'disco' song immensely.

that Pitchfork review really can't decide whether to knock the album for being too hip or too out of touch.

I'd never heard (or heard of) Warpaint before this album, so maybe there's a stigma I'm missing?

the criticisms are 'no hooks' and 'weak vocals', and the review acknowledges that the strengths are playing and production. maybe the problem is that they're not a pop band, but had the misfortune of getting the budget + hype as if they were?

failed pop record vs successful art rock record i guess

btw does anyone else have the embarrassing habit of checking an artist's twitter when they get a shitty pfork review to see if they acknowledged it in any way?

I hadn't, but I might start.

Oh, I thought you were hinting that there was something there.

ha sorry. nah almost everyone is too cautious for that these days, but every now and then it's entertaining.

there is often a lot of this type of action going on in the RA comments section.

seeing is a rare feat. not surprised dude couldn't see the goodness.

Why do you hate this band?

― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:15 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Saw them live before their first record came out and couldn't remember ever seeing a band with less personality making a bigger impression on a room full of smitten indie dudes; guys who probably couldn't tell a rack tom from a djembe talking about band's "amazing drummer," etc. I listened to The Fool though, because I wanted to see if I was missing anything, and found it bland and lacking anything resembling an original idea. Conspicuously "disaffected" LA malegaze shit no one will care about in three years.

What does "malegaze" mean?

Wow.

Like, seriously, I have the most completely legitimate teengirl reason to HAAAAAAAAAAAATE Warpaint with the heat of a thousand suns jealous Beliebers, so I have been avoiding this album, but it keeps seeping into my listening space (through Tumblr, through sodding *ads* on YouTube) with this insistent whispering of "Go on, you knooooooowww you want to adore us. We are pretty much made from your ILM posts about wibbling dronerock circa 2001, just go on and drink the potion, we have cooooookies...."

So if you hate them because "other dudes like to look at them" for real, grow up and go away.

But really, please come back and explain at length what you mean by "malegaze" because if you can take a political concept like "the male gaze" and turn it into a diss against female musicians rendering their art as meaningless because men apparently sometimes look at them, I would really like to hear the logic behind that convolution.

I hoped I'd read it wrong because that term could be applied to any female musician that some male fans enjoy looking at, ie all of them.

To be uncharacteristically serious for a moment, you know, every time I start to think that I'm being heavy-handed and OTT with my whole semi-parodic satire of "refuse to judge critically acclaimed male indie-rock sacred cows by any other criteria than their haircuts" thing... I come back and read posts like that, and realise that no matter how far I go, it will never be far enough, it will never be quite as far as the way that men treat female musicians every fucking day. Which takes a little bit of the fun out of it.

I have been off ILM too long. I had forgotten.

I am gonna go discover the new Warpaint album on mine own, because this kinda discourse has just become so wearing.

I'm baffled by that.

Not BB or DL, obviously.

The Fork review was pretty wrong-footed, I felt, as would be any review of this album that complains that the drums are mixed as a lead instrument and that the bass carries the melodies. And: so? That's partly what makes the band so interesting. Though I suppose what he hammers as trip hop or whatever is what I heard as Too Pure. Same era, I guess. I know that writer is pretty smug about hating on anything from LA, his beat, but really, he's hating on this record for the wrong reasons. There are cases to be made both pro and con, but this doesn't quite work it out. Like, you know, landing Flood and Godrich as an implied criticism. Most bands wish, you know? I'd take this band's intriguing lack of charisma over Savages compelling redundancies any day. The latter is less boring but somehow still ... boring. But maybe I'll take the stronger con side re: Warpaint after I see them next month.

I do want to understand Cunningham's obsession, though. He's pretty selective.

Cunningham's married to one of them, isn't he? Which explains that.

Also, they're good.

The Pitchfork review is weird but not really that weird if you know the writer; IC used to write for Stylus so I've been aware of him for years and, at Pitchfork especially, I don't trust his ears, his opinions, or his reasons. Example: he complains that neither Flood nor Godrich were able to bring out any 'dynamics' on Warpaint's songwriting (well Godrich only mixed two or three tracks so he won't have had any effect on the songwriting whatsoever), but neither Flood nor Godrich are actually known for bringing out 'dynamics' anyway; both of them to my ears bring a smooth, technological, modernist sheen to the stuff they work in.

But that's just one example of many things that don't make sense to me about that review. Likewise the Quietus review didn't make any sense to me either; neither piece feels at all as if it's about the record I've heard.

BB, fwiw, I think you'd really, really like this record. I totally hear it as a Too Pure thing too, like Josh says, or like really early Verve with the skyscraping guitar mixed out. it's not pop or rock; it's dreamy somnambulist wooze music.

We don't mention CCunningham marrying any Dirty Drone Girl Bassist that isn't me! We just don't, OK?

This hurts me, in my heart. So we don't discuss thissssssss! *stamps feet and wails inconsolably*

Sorry!

I'm not familiar with Too Pure at all, but I usually pull this band out alongside the Cure.

BB, I'm sorry for your loss. :(

also lol at Warpaint and all their djembes or whatever.

or that pitchfork review and all their ryan gosling soundtracks.

It's OK. I hear Richard D James has recently divorced so I'm OK holding out for the OG. *sniff*

I do need to give this album a proper listen, because the thing is, I loved Exquisite Corpse, I really got that "mineminemine" precious feeling about it, like it was designed explicitly and only for me, it was a very intimate and immediate obsession. But I did not get the same feeling from The Fool apart from a couple of songs - maybe Majesty and Undertow, from memory? - and I don't know if I didn't give it enough of a chance to captivate me. But the two songs I've heard off the new one, immediately hit me in that sonic happy place. (Early Verve is much more likely to get me than "The Cure" because "The Cure encompasses so many things, like, if we're talking Pornography and A Forest, or if we're talking Friday I'm In Love? I think it's the guitar effects, though, they *luuuuuurve* that heavy chorus + Fender reverb guitar tone, which is one of those signifiers people always mean when they say "The Cure)

eagerly anticipating dog latin and imago's opinions on it exactly one year from now

― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Wednesday, 22 January 2014 06:00 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

have repped for Warpaint before; this album's begun brilliantly

absolutely no comparison to the dullard Savages

I have never fucked with the Verve before. Will take this opportunity to check them out. Probably up my alley.

To be honest, I would not expect anyone with a greater understanding of the stylistic differences between various sub-genres of indie-rock than, say, Lex, to attempt a comparison between Warpaint and Savages based on their *music*. So please, let's not go there unless you really wanna discuss how much Nick McCabe sounds like East Bay Ray?

The comparison I got when I saw Savages live was specifically that the rhythm section is great and carries the group, while the guitar provides atmospherics. But I would never confuse the two bands. I am confused however at the amount of hype Savages earned vs. this band, which seems to be doing more interesting things with fewer rewards.

Flood nor Godrich are actually known for bringing out 'dynamics' anyway; both of them to my ears bring a smooth, technological, modernist sheen to the stuff they work in.

Actually, Flood's been one of PJ Harvey's go-tos, and on her grungier, less sheen-y albums, no less.

i didn't get the Savages hype until i saw a video of them playing live, then i totally got it.

Actually, Flood's been one of PJ Harvey's go-tos, and on her grungier, less sheen-y albums, no less.

TBYML is considerably more sheeny and modernist and technological, I'd argue, than Ride Of Me, which is the most dynamic and raw and dramatic, I'd say. (It's obviously still not Keane, you know, but it's a much bigger, richer, more produced sound than ROM).

Ride of Me. Indeed.

I thought the 'malegaze' thing was pretty clear; it was my maybe-not-totally-clever but certainly-not-meant-to-be-offensive conflation of both the way I've noticed male writers describing bands like Warpaint, Savages, etc (I'm guessing you don't need examples here) and the fact that their sound obviously touches on the, err, impressionistic aspects of shoegaze. I just find this band a complete non-event. To be fair, though, music "pretty much made from...ILM posts about wibbling dronerock circa 2001" was never, on its best day, bound to win me over.

TBYML is considerably more sheeny and modernist and technological, I'd argue, than Ride Of Me

True! But since then Flood has been involved with Is This Desire?, White Chalk (!), A Woman and a Man Walk By and Let England Shake, most of which don't pass the modernist/sheeny/tech test. Just sayin'.

True, true.

So they don't sound like a more polished Siouxsie & The Banshees anymore?