Band of Horses

If you really want to laugh some time at how seriously music critics take themselves, I recommend you take a look at the evolution of Pitchfork’s opinion of Band of Horses. What was first breathless praise slowly but surely evolved into near utter contempt. Even though it was the work of multiple reviewers, each had similarly high hopes derived from the band’s early work. At a certain point, you have to ask, “Why was this case?”

Though it may seem like I’m attempting to bury Band of Horses, this actually is not the case. I am just offering an argument for not having rapturous expectations in the first place. I remember hearing “The Funeral” when it first came out, and my first instinct was to say “Hey, this is a pretty good Shins song.” You would think that considering that they were label mates on Sub Pop that this would be among the first comparisons to be made, but instead I saw a lot written about My Morning Jacket (not really, but I can see some similarities at least from a vocal perspective between Ben Bridwell and Jim James) and Neil Young (no, not at all). In fact, I had first tried to pay attention to Band of Horses because of the MMJ comparisons, and when I didn’t hear the similarities, I decided to ignore them, despite the heavy praise of the album. It wasn’t until I saw BoH open up for Dinosaur Jr. that I decided to reconsider my stance, based both on the music and Bridwell’s beard, which was at the time at a level of Martsch-ian proportions.

I actually first became excited for the band when I heard the lead single for Cease to Begin, the seemingly upbeat “Is There A Ghost”. And then when I saw that they had a song called “Detlef Schrempf”, they had all the hooks they needed for me. If you reference one of my favorite third-banana NBA players from the 90’s (and a beloved Blazer in his short time here), you definitely have my attention. It was at this point that I decided that I would start following this band and at least keep track when they released a new album.

Now I will agree with the critical consensus about the decline in relative quality over the course of BoH’s career. Infinite Arms had a couple of catchy songs, but I never played it as much as Cease to Begin or Everything All The Time. And Mirage Rock left such a minimal impression on me that I recently checked to make sure that I actually own the album. The difference is, I don’t see the decline in the grandiose tragic terms as some of those other critics. “Where’s the artistic growth?” they would ask; I respond, “Why did you expect any to begin with?” There wasn’t anything necessarily uniquely great about the group from the beginning. They merely developed an interesting sound, wrote a few good songs, and continue to do pretty much the same thing for each album.

This leads me to their latest release, Acoustic at the Ryman. The review for this album in particular is even more hilarious considering the level of bile and invective. It’s at this point you have to step back and ask, “What is a live acoustic album for?” It pretty much just serves the purpose of providing a mix tape of previous albums, a pseudo-Greatest Hits collection for neophytes, with a slightly different take on these songs, something that serves the fans. There’s no need to go into long digressions about the significance of the venue and analyzing the existential dilemma of a moderately successful indie rock group. Accept it for what it is, and move on.

So, considering those parameters, is the album a success? If you’ve never heard Band of Horses, pick the album up and you will get a good idea of their sound. For fans of the band, sure, why not–the arrangements are different enough that they’re enjoyable to compare to what you know. It’s not sacrilege to hear “The Funeral” with a piano. Save the theatrics for someone else.

Covered is a feature where we examine the merits of various cover songs, debating whether or not they capture the spirit and intent of the original, if the cover adds anything new, and whether or not it perhaps surpasses the original. If we fail on those counts, at the very least we may expose you to different versions of great songs you hadn’t heard before.

This week we’re going to bridge between an artist we examined last week and a group whose new album we’ll review tomorrow. First, we’ll examine the original from the new artist:

It’s easy to see why “No One’s Gonna Love You” was one of the singles from Cease to Begin. It’s a gorgeous and delicate ballad, with beautiful crystalline guitars, and a soaring melody which is a perfect showcase for Ben Bridwell’s voice. It’s pretty much right in Band of Horses’s wheelhouse, the kind of song that people would suggest when selling the potential of the band. Sorry for the quick description, but the qualities of the song are pretty self-evident upon first listen, and there’s no real need for further analysis on my part.

When examining the tracklist to Cee Lo’s album The Lady-Killer, I wondered if this could possibly be a cover of the Band of Horses tune, and much to my surprise it was. Upon first impression, one wouldn’t expect there to be much common ground between the two artists, but of course Cee Lo has never been one to constrain himself with musical limits (see the previous “Covered” with Gnarls Barkley’s version of “Reckoner”). Cee Lo says “Fuck that” to your narrow-minded expectations (of course, not to be confused with another popular statement he made that year.)

The thing that I love best about this cover is that instead of downplaying the potentially saccharine sentiment of the song, it goes in completely the other direction and amplifies them to the hilt. “No one’s gonna love you more than I do”? Let’s make sure you get the message by adding huge swelling strings! And the basic hip-hop beat programming works surprisingly well with the music too. And the final confirmation of what makes this a really good cover: I’m sure there were plenty of people that bought Cee Lo’s album without realizing that this song was actually done by a semi-obscure indie rock band.

And to top things off, Band of Horses decided to return the favor by doing their own cover of Cee Lo’s “Georgia”. It’s quite the mutual appreciation society that they’ve developed.