Cease to Begin, the sophomore effort from Band of Horses sees its official Sub Pop release today and has been met with solid reviews, with Pitchfork throwing it a 7.7 and Stylus giving it a solid B. In his piece, Derek Miller wrote that, “Band of Horses can still pen some itchingly addictive tunes. Cease to Begin may well be an album of transition, but these Carissa’s Wierdos have proven enough in just two years to mark them as a band to hear stadium-huge in small arenas and smaller speakers in whatever splotch of this vast humming place you call your own.”

Derek’s right, but if you asked me why I like Band of Horses the answer is much simpler: they still sound an awful lot like My Morning Jacket and early Neil Young. While that that might not be original enough for some, any band capable of successfully channeling the pastoral hayseed goodness of Jim James and Shakey is good enough for me.

The move to small-town Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina seems to make sense for the band, whose first album, Everything All the Time, seemed more grain silo’d and bearded than it did rainy day and caffeine-addled. There’s always been a rural straw-chewing quality to their music, nothing complicated at, just shambling pleasant songs to throw before you go to sleep at night or right when you wake up. This might not be a great album but it’s certainly a very likeable record from a very likeable band. Plus, they name one of their songs “Detlef Schrempf.” Which is awesome. Hopefully the next album will have a song “Xavier McDaniel.”

Download:

From Cease to Begin
MP3: Band of Horses-”Is There a Ghost”

From Everything All the Time
MP3: Band of Horses-”The Funeral”
MP3: Band of Horses-”Great Salt Lake”

Unfortunately, Schrempf is More of a Kraftwerk Man

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Album Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.