Music Review for Warpaint's: Warpaint

Let me start by saying I love this album’s artwork. It’s one of those few album covers where the artwork is a perfect picture of how the music within sounds. The artwork is pretty, sexy and ethereal which also describes the music on Warpaint’s eponymous second album. It’s been four years since their previous album, “The Fool,” and from the sounds of it the group spent that time experimenting with and perfecting their chops. The time gap has definitely paid off as Warpaint has crafted a dreamy near flawless late night headphones record.

A brief intro opens the album and sets the tone with its smoky keyboard ambience, slowly pulsing bass, spacey guitar swells and basic but prominent drumming. “Love Is to Die,” is probably the album’s most obvious single and again the drums are out front bursting through the sonic smoke and acting as a tour guide through the song’s foggy ambience. It’s a tune that seems to both fear and idealize love with its chorus that says both, “love is to die,” and “love is to dance.” Check it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnuFYYJHaY0

“Hi” has a trippy hypnotic bass line, a perfect blend of live and programmed drums, and a chorus that has Theresa Wayman swooning, “In the middle of the day, you find love…” A similar slow and hazy vibe permeates “Go In” which also incorporates a sample from one of the forefathers of afrobeat, Tony Allen and his song “Hustler.” The tune floats through your head with the last forty or so seconds featuring some backwards guitar blending into a keyboard forged stratosphere. “Feeling Alright,” opens with Stella Mozgawa hitting her drum sticks together before the song bursts into a determined almost funky stomp.

Some of the songs float gently and some of them float menacingly, but they all float as the girls incorporate the lessons they’ve learned from hip hop and electronic music into a seductive fusion of trance-like electronica, spacey psychedelic rock and sexy dream pop. This album is a step forward for the band and as such it earns four burning coals.