Warpaint’s debut album, ‘The Fool’, was all about mood and texture, never stooping to engage with what would traditionally be expected from a band positioned on the periphery of the ever-expanding, but not necessarily diversifying, indie scene.
Its follow up is, if anything, even more reluctant to step from the shadows. Skirting post-punk and the more ambient worlds of post-rock and shoegaze, it inhabits a lush landscape, but one with darkness creeping into view at every turn.
Underpinning everything is the work of bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg and drummer Stella Mozgawa, who are the island around which the album’s viscous grooves flow.
Mozgawa is on particularly fine form throughout and her ability to add driving rhythms to songs that would otherwise congeal into an audio soup is the ace up Warpaint’s sleeve.
From the instrumental Intro, through Keep It Healthy and Love Is To Die, we see Warpaint at their absolute best. Grounded by their rhythm section, Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman blend reverb-soaked leads and background synths with nagging melodies, culminating in the lead single’s widescreen chorus.
If certain tracks here, the rambling Teese or the lightweight Drive, are too unfocused to hit home, there is some solace to be found elsewhere in the direct, percussive thud of Disco//very or the rolling ballad, Son.
The problem comes when trying to assess ‘Warpaint’ as a whole. Its more experimental passages are obviously integral to the band’s vision, part of their DNA in fact, but they do cloak many of its more immediate pleasures.
Wed January 22 2014 - LONDON Electrowerkz
Sat January 25 2014 - OXFORD O2 Academy Oxford
Tue February 18 2014 - LONDON KOKO
Wed February 19 2014 - LEEDS O2 Academy Leeds
Thu February 20 2014 - LIVERPOOL O2 Academy Liverpool
Fri February 21 2014 - BRISTOL O2 Academy Bristol
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