Music Review: Everything All the Time by Band of Horses

Originally written May 26, 2006 for The Poly Post.

Every time I play Band of Horses' debut album "Everything All the Time" my girlfriend asks the same question.

"Is this the Cocteau Twins?"

And she's not far off. The dreamy, lush, densely layered guitars could indeed easily be confused with that epitome of 1980s dream pop. At least for about 30 seconds.

Then Ben Bridwell starts singing, managing to sound not only uncannily like Neil Young, but also James Mercer of The Shins and Jim James of My Morning Jacket all at the same time. So let's see: so far we've got comparisons to a 1960s Canadian folk-rock god, 80s Scottish dream pop, Southern alt-country and Northwestern indie pop. Sounds about right.

Band of Horses manages to pull these disparate influences into something that just clicks. Maybe it's the simple earnestness with which the band delivers these 10 tracks, or the tightness with which they're constructed. Even when the lyrics don't literally mean much, the images conjured up by them feel like they mean the world.

"Wicked Gil" opens with a propulsive hi-hat and bass drum driven rhythm that almost sounds like it could be a lost Franz Ferdinand track. Then the gorgeous melody kicks in and Bridwell almost has to shout his lyrics to keep them from drowning in the reverb that soaks his vocal tracks.

"Everything all the Time" is a nearly flawless collection of beautiful, heartrending melodies and sprawling instrumentation.

The one misstep is "Part One", a slow acoustic track with an uninteresting melody that sounds like a My Morning Jacket outtake, and slows down the momentum of the middle part of the record.

But nobody could accuse Band of Horses of being stale. "The Funeral", though as dire as its title would lead you to believe, doesn't wallow in depression like "Part One". It begins spare, with Bridwell singing over a single echoing guitar. When the rest of the band finally joins you can feel the tension of the song dissolve, and even when he's emoting all over the place on lyrics like "At every occasion, I'm ready for a funeral" Bridwell never sounds trite or, well, emo.

Band of Horses show their country and folk influences on the downright happy sounding "Weed Party." It even begins with a "yee-haw!" It takes a special blend of self-awareness and earnestness to pull that off on an indie rock record, and luckily Band of Horses possess that odd kind of semi-seriousness.

By the time the album closes with "St. Augustine" the group seems to have realized how to pull off a quiet acoustic track without it becoming boring. Bridwell channels Jeff Mangum, with lyrics that are simultaneously beautiful and nonsensical. "Fire in the ground/Between my bitter teeth/We're dancing on the poison in their graves," he sings.

"Everything All the Time" is a stunning debut for these newcomers. While it might be nice in the future to not be able to readily cite so many artists they've cribbed from, at least they've blended them into something wholly their own, and made something new and beautiful in the process.