Reviews

Band Of Horses

Cease To Begin

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Review Date: 2007-12-04

Last month, I drove from Vancouver to Toronto with my brother and sister to discover the country, hang out with the family and maybe discover something about myself. As we were crossing the wheat-laden prairies, I turned up Band of Horses’ second album, Cease to Begin, and stared out the window of a Ford Edge – sorry, Honda Civic – and felt as if I was starting to find myself, wind breezing through my hair.

Cease To Begin is the follow-up to the band’s first album Everything All The Time. Despite the departure of founding member Mat Brooke and a location shift from Seattle to South Carolina, not much has changed. The remaining band members will still attract comparisons to My Morning Jacket or a country version of The Shins. The melodies are still beautiful, the hooks are still catchy and the reverb on Ben Bridwell’s vocals are still lathered on thick, like a kid making his first peanut butter sandwich.

The first radio hit, “Is There A Ghost”, is also the album’s lead-off track. It begins with a slow-picking guitar riff and shimmering cymbal rolls, with the reverb-heavy echoing vocals completing the band’s signature sound. Then the guitars kick up, the drums bang and the lyrics repeat. Ben writes, “When I lived alone, is there a ghost in my house,” followed by “I can sleep” which is probably a reference to his marijuana activism and maybe a sign his paranoia hasn’t gone away -- or his writing skills haven’t improved.

“Ode to LRC” follows the first track with the same upbeat rock’n’country that slows a little near the end. It introduces “No One’s Gonna Leave You”, one of Bridwell’s first shining writing moments and a possible second radio single. The album continues to slow with a ballad dedicated to “Detlef Schrempf” (better known as the Seattle Supersonic), for reasons I can’t find. They pick up the pace with “The General Specific”, filled with Beach Boy-like harmonies and pop-infused melodies easy to get your head rocking. They then hit you with a 50-second instrumental that may be a lame attempt to increase the album time (approx. only 34 minutes).

“Islands On The Coast” has a sprightly little guitar riff but unfortunately is the last up-tempo song we hear on the album. The first of three ballads to finish the album is “Marry Song”, a tune about love lost, well-written and backed by the most twang heard on the album. “Cigarettes And Wedding Bands” contains the best lyrics for singing along. The album finishes with “Window Blues”, a tender song with a subtle slide guitar.

Cease to Begin is indie rock, pulling at heartstrings in a dreamlike fall afternoon, inside and by a fire. It is alternative country roots rock as it always has been, and Band of Horses delivers exactly as you would expect.

Score: 8.2

- Tyler Wade