Album Review: Warpaint – Heads Up

8/10

Album Review: Warpaint - Heads Up

Since coming on the indie scene in 2007, California’s fearsome female foursome, Warpaint has managed to create and carve out a unique niche in the world of music. Time after time the band has managed to build and duplicate the sounds and atmospheres of earlier albums. Each album, and song in particular, feature lush soundscapes, intertwined with various voices of the members of the band.

Featuring Emily Kokal, Theresa Wayman, Jenny Lee Lindberg, and Stella Mozgawa, Warpaint operates on a level few female bands have managed to crack. Hell, I don’t even think I can recall any band, female fronted or not, that has been as good as securing a distinct sound that immediately lets you know who it is, but also moves forward to get to the next desired goal.

All of that bleeds through on the group’s third full album, Heads Up. The album starts as a dream in a garden at the rise of the dawn, but many different parts of the record feel right at home in the night of our world. By Your Side is a sway with a seductive partner in a dimly lit space, while the track following it, New Song, could fit perfectly in a drug fueled haze in a dive bar with red lights shadowing the atmosphere.

That element is one of the best the band utilizes. It’s sexy, entrancing, and ethereal all at the same time, and it works brilliantly for these fabulous woman. When you hear the band it makes you wonder why they aren’t better known, but with this next album sure to notch up their status at least a little bit, it couldn’t be long before the clubs of the past make way for theaters and bigger statuses at the many music festivals in the world.

Much the album follows similar ideals, but this record sees the band stretching ideas out. In particular, the last four songs of the record are some of the best and most entrancing the group has ever done, and in my mind perfectly explains why this band is so, so good. Especially tracks like number nine, Dre, which makes me feel like swimming in a brightly lit pool surrounded by the night sky. It’s shit like this that get’s you into a beautiful otherworldly state of mind, and Warpaint is damn good at it too. In conclusion, Warpaint deserves to be listened to and enjoyed by any music fan, but especially open minded types who want something different and signature.

Avatar for Landon Murray
Landon Murray 19 Articles
Favorite band: Nine Inch Nails Favorite album: Kid A - Radiohead

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