Band Of Horses seems to be on every blogger’s fingertips this week. The Seattle indie rockers’ Everything All The Time (Amazon | iTunes) came out yesterday, and has been getting a lot of play on Stereogum’s iTunes. Recommended if you like My Morning Jacket and a solid debut start to finish for sure. Insound’s weekly newsletter goes a step further, though: “Perhaps the best album of 2006.” (They haven’t even heard the awesome new Phoenix!) I guess that means the backlash starts now?
“The First Song” is all dreamy guitars and “Our Swords” rides a poppy, elastic bass line, but Sub Pop chose this tune as the free download. Maybe they hope the title will appeal to Arcadies.
Band Of Horses – “The Funeral” (MP3)
We’d do a whole “horses are the new wolves” spiel, but Spin beat us to it.
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This is a good album.
Wolves (2005)
Horses (2006)
Emus?? (2007)
I guess Snakes never really caught on…how about Bears? Bears in 07!
Anyone hear the Smashing Pumpkins in this band? Specifically the first song, and “Swords.” If anyone got that EP with Machina, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Jim, ‘Bears On A Plane’ = in pre-production.
Hey, there you go! Comparing it to Smashing Pumpkins is a *surefire* way to get people to hate it!
sure don’t hear any smashing pumpkins in it, but this album is incredible… my favorite of the year thus far and my favorite show at sxsw.
I would appreciate a link so I can hear the awesome new Phoenix. Or at least maybe a link to “Long Distance Call”.
what do you mean bears?
Bear in Heaven, Grizzly Bear, Minus the Bear, Panda Bear, Bear vs. Shark, Gorilla vs. Bear (blogs are the new bands btw), and don’t forget Huggy Bear from yesteryear.
sorry to spoil, but the backlash can come from me.
That new Band of Horses is nothing special. Yes, it’s competent and yes, they play music and don’t ever fuck up. It’s like a hazy Flaming Lips / Built to Spill type thing. Umm…so?
That new Glenn Kotche album slays though…let’s see some press on that!
> That new Glenn Kotche album slays
> though…let’s see some press on that!
Got MP3?
I too would like to hear some new Phoenix awesomeness if it were at all possible.
Backlash starts here, I don’t like Band of Horses.
I did just listen to Long Distance Call by Phoenix though and I liked that. I am intrigued by your implication that you have the rest of the new album. Let’s hear something from it???
Ok, bears are out. dolphins! I finally got it! animals that appear in front of full moons on white trash shirts = indie band name animals
little note- I love the way these guys sound but the Lead singer was the biggest dick ever. I drove in the driving snow to see them, sat through a horrible opening band only to have that jack ass storm off stage after only 4 songs (and before they played funeral even!) No refund, no apology. I fucking hate these guys, except they’re actually a pretty good band. If you see them punch that ugly bitch lead singer in his face. He is very ugly in person and not very charismatic. Great voice though.
Glenn Kotche from his site: http://www.glennkotche.com
Mobile Pts. 1 & 2
http://glennkotche.com/audio/02_mobile1and2.mov
also: check his MySpace page for more songs…including one that sounds like Autechre…it’s pretty crazy stuff. http://www.myspace.com/glennkotche
I swear I don’t work for Nonesuch
It’s just a good record and people need to get it.
mp3 of ‘long distance call’ -
http://www.republicum.se/2006/03/22/they-are-phoenix/
very cool.
I like ‘em, but I’m tempering my enthusiasm due to bias… I’m a Carissa’s Weird fan (Band of Horses members Ben Bridwell and Matt Brooke’s former band) and I’m from Seattle (perhaps the latter requires the former.)
“Great Salt Lake” is pretty majestic… but when you get down to it, they’re really like a poor man’s MMJ. But this man’s poor, and loves his MMJ, so serve me up ‘nother helpin’.
I’m a bit surprised by the attention Band of Horses is getting. The single is good, but the rest of the record is kinda boring. I guess the hype is more valuable than the music now?
Man, people love to hate on records with good press. Does a record honestly have to break amazing amounts of new ground to be good? It’s not groundbreaking but the songwriting is very good. I am much more impressed by the record than I was by their performance opening for Iron and wine.
Love the album…don’t see any Smashing Pumpkins in it though, but SP is my fav. band of all time, so maybe to a more casual SP fan it may seem so.
i just think it’s important to bring up the questions…:
why do certain records get good press?
is this band of horses record SO good that it should get this kind of praise heaped up on it by all major indie news sources?
is it SO much better than a lot of other records coming out in the same six month period on much smaller labels?
what does “songwriting is very good…” mean?
is the music lasting, relevant, different enough?
—
for the record, i really like a lot of hyped, popular records…but when there is a new hyped band, i listen to the record and ask some of the questions, try to strip the hype and listen for what it is…
if you play me band of horses six years from now, i won’t have a clue what it is…”hi, your music is real safe and not very catchy or memorable…do you want a hug? better yet, a pile of hype?”
All the hate aside… This is a good album, but it’s the kind of album one can tire of easily. I predict a sh*t load of spins in 06… foregotten in 07… pretty much the same way a group like Mercury Rev has been (who I think they sound exactly like) I mean how long has it been since you have whipped out your copy of Deserters Songs.
I loved the demo they toured with. It was very much the same songs that came out on the final product, with less reverb. I played the album like crazy for weeks and weeks. It’s very good. It reminds me of how My Morning Jacket used to sound. And quite frankly, I liked MMJ better when they sounded this way.
That said, I can’t speak to the timelessness of this record. It’s just too soon to tell. But the album is worth the current praise, at least in my eyes.
But I think the fact that P4K gave them a good rating is why people are already hating on them. It’s unwarranted…this time.
I saw these guys last year on the Iron & Wine tour, as I’m sure many of you folks did. two nights in a row, in fact. all that really stood out for me was that they were amiable (we heckled them) and probably more than a little nervous…and that the guitar playing wasn’t very good. (quarter-note pentatonic scale solos on an electric-acoustic with a bad pick-up! whoo-hoo!)
haven’t heard the new record yet, but if it’s as good as everyone says it is (read: doubtful), then they’ve improved a lot in a short amount of time.
Another Band of Horses mp3, “I Go to the Barn Because I Like The,” can be found here:
http://tracemyface.blogspot.com/2006/02/my-morning-band-of-horses.html
you should just talk about They Shoot Horses Don’t They?
Just sayin.
Yeah, wanted to second Tyler. I heard them open for Iron and Wine and was unimpressed. Really, really unimpressed. Is the album really a leap forward for them?
IS Geddy Lee in this band?
so..who was around first… My Morning Jacket or Band of Horses?
I absolutely hear the Smashing Pumpkins influence in these guys, mostly in Detlef Schrempf. And that would also be to some of the b-side tracks of the pumpkins. not the stuff aired on the radio. the pumpkins have so much incredible music that never got radio play. Listen to Pisces Iscariot and you’ll hear the similarity to BoH’s Detlef Schrempf. BoH is friggin’ great, as were the pumpkins back in the day…
our swords is a good song the guitars and beat strikes me as good listenin