When I saw Warpaint at the Queen's Hall a few years ago, accusations about it being impossible to tell where one song ended and the next began certainly rang true. Not that it mattered, because the ebb and flow of the music across the set list was thrilling enough in itself.
Warpaint are more about impressionistic textures and settling into an indie-rock groove for a series of short durations than writing what's commonly considered to be "songs" - and that's even more true of this self-titled second album than it was of 2010's debut, The Fool.
When I listen to this all-female quartet from Los Angeles, I'm more interested in harmony than melody, and in the way those, ethereal voices gravitate around chiming guitars, a rock-meets-dub bass that's felt as much as heard, and the dominant rhythm of Stella Mozgawa's drums.
That's not to say there aren't individual tracks to grab hold of on this new album: Love Is To Die distills everything that's distinctive about Warpaint into one radio-friendly but critic-pleasing mix. Overall, though, their style is more clearly defined here, the production sharper, the individual components more adventurous, as they add a generous sprinkling of Radiohead to their one part Chili Peppers/one part Cocteau Twins concoction.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article