Warpaint

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?

ok so

this is basically a masterpiece

fuck Pitchfork, fuck all the cunts who want you to write accessible indie-dance hits, make whatever music you want to, especially if it takes you down this sublime rabbit-hole

Today, I came to terms with the songs in the middle of the album that I had previously characterized as "filler", but now I get kinda hung up with with "Son". I'm saying this as a rabid Warpaint fan here.

kinda ridiculously the album kinda got even better after I posted that, culminating with 'Drive', which is srsly giving The Cars an impromptu streetrace for best song of that name

This album is blossoming more and more for me with every listen.

Son is a nice woozy closer, def not a highlight but the shoddy Byrds guitar at the end is sorta genius

It's astonishing how one person can have the talent to make me almost hate music I should otherwise love, by casually taking swipes at other music I also love. Can you please leave out the boring Drowned-In-Sound-isms of treating music as some kind of rival contest between righteous taste and whatever it is you're demonising this week. It is possible to love many different things.

Cosign. It's not a fight.

saw them last night in brighton, they were excellent. stella the drummer is a monster.

That's an Interpol song, right?

Stella Is A Monster And She Is Always Drums (pompously)

(Warpaint's drums are actually the opposite of pompous; I just can't stop saying that.)

yr totally projecting there - what swipes do I take, other than saying that the band doesn't have to adhere to blogosphere type?

Pitchfork isn't a band, you know (thank fuck)

I happen to like "indie-accessible dance hits" and your tedious grumbling against them was played out already 3000 posts ago on the EOY tracks list. When you put that music in opposition to e.g. Warpaint in your nasty little imagined feuds you do neither yourself nor the music you are supposedly advocating any favours.

In fairness, the attempt at an accessible indie-dance song is by some margin the worst thing here.

I listened to this at low volume while reading the other night and it really worked for me as ambient, to the extent I got annoyed when Disco/very broke the spell. Whether it'll reward repeated/closer listens I don't know, although I still don't like the singer's voice when she hits high notes.

I'm not saying indie-accessible dance is per se a bad thing, just that Warpaint don't have to make it, and that their talents clearly lie more sublimely with a comparatively contemplative, atmospheric, surreal music

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

direct quote from Pitchfork - just saying, there's an enemy to fight

This is inane, no one wants them to make indie-dance and no one has ever claimed to. Even the Pitchfork review isn't saying that. Another pointless false-opposition.

Now why on earth would I get the idea that saying "fuck X" was implying something negative about X? I mean, really. Fuck imago, then, I guess.

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the warpaint room!

hooks, grooves, or even a pulse most of the time

^indie-dance, by my reckoning.

I said 'fuck those who', not 'fuck indie dance', different clauses yo. Also, by God let me restrain this hand from typing further

(except a li'l lol @ how's life)

to chill you all out here is a shit photo i took last night.
http://distilleryimage8.s3.amazonaws.com/b091257284c611e39d6d127553f729f8_7.jpg
annoying person behind me last night was all "I don't like the new album and ooh this is the first time I've seen them not play in a diamond formation" which again proves you never eavesdrop anything worth hearing at a gig.

their vocals were really, really fantastic last night, too. I'm impressed how they can recreate the vibe and timbre of a geodesic dome in Joshua Tree to venues of all shapes and sizes.

hooks, grooves, or even a pulse most of the time

^indie-dance, by my reckoning.

Yeah because those three elements are only ever present in indie-dance...

Also, by God let me restrain this hand from typing further

yes God, please restrain that hand

lol

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

they never did.

The lead vocal reminds me of Siouxsie although yes the instrumentation is not Banshees-like

I'm really liking this....actually I think a lot of the observations about how the music is constructed in that Pitchfork review aren't necessarily wrong, but to me they are positives...esp the sort of drifting, diffuse groove parts an the bass handling the melody, which is a weird thing to slam them for seeing how I'd imagine Pitchfork holds a certain obscure Manchester post-punk band called Joy Division in high regard.

I keep finding myself coming back to 'Hi', I love that groove.

yeah this album is excellent. i mean yeah it meanders but thats cool. they're not a band i listen to for tight songwriting anyway. its more about that enchanting VOIB and atmosphere. the rhythm section are incredible on this too. "keep it healthy" and "disco" are my faves so far.

Still haven't heard the second half. Saving it for something

Sexing?

they're not a band i listen to for tight songwriting anyway

2014

well not everything HAS to be tight verse-chorus-verse yknow. they have a nice sound thats good to get lost in

I'm a lucky charm.

this record is fascinating. the word "elliptical" doesn't even sum up how they handle every instrument that's not bass, drums, or vox.

i think what the pitchfork review missed is that this is less a collection of 12 songs than 1 song with 12 movements.

agreed i really really enjoy this album

this record is hypnotizing

The Pitchfork review is hilariously off the mark, but a perfect example of why many Pitchfork reviews are hilariously off the mark: the reviewer is more concerned with writing a mini-essay about his pet thesis (i.e., Warpaint is a modern version of a late-90s alt rock album) than he is with actually reviewing the music on the album he was assigned to review.

Despite the reviewer's insistence that Nigel Godrich mixing this album somehow makes it into OK Computer 2.0, it reminds me far more of the Slits' Cut in that it seems to reflect a uniquely female rejection of standard rock conventions, and of standard musical conventions, such as resolution, verse-chorus-verse song structure, etc. And, although it's not a jazz record, it stands in the same relation to rock that Miles Davis's Nefertiti does to jazz, in that it's almost backwards or upside-down music, with the drums taking the role of lead instrument and everything else providing the rhythmic pulse.

But, beyond the argument about which other records this sounds like, I agree with ciderpress and call all destroyer that the record is fascinating on its own terms. The first few times I listened to it, I did think it was a formless mess with a great mood, but repeated listens do reveal structures, hooks, melodies, etc. They may not be conventional structures, hooks, and melodies, but they are there.

spot on, driver 8

2nded, esp the slits reference.

jah great post