Album review: Warpaint

Warpaint may well make a great album one day. But it's not this one.

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Warpaint Warpaint (Rough Trade) ⋆⋆⋆

When a band decamps to the fabled desert wilderness of Joshua Tree to record their latest album, you expect the results to contain a certain amount of atmospheric otherworldliness. And so it proves on Warpaint’s second album, which could well have been crafted by a coven of harmonious witches standing around a great cauldron, strumming woozy guitars. The all-girl Californian quartet caused much fuss with their first LP, 2010’s The Fool, and the follow-up certainly has its moments; but they are just moments, rather than sustained, attention-grabbing spells. The band were clearly intent on creating an epic mood throughout, and so enlisted Flood and Nigel Godrich, whose production credits include Nine Inch Nails, Sigur Rós and Radiohead. Oh, for such drama here, as the ominous musical storm-clouds invariably fail to evolve into anything truly substantial. After a promisingly propulsive beginning, the attention drifts alarmingly during yet another moody wall of sound, and even the pop-fuelled Love Is to Die and funkier Disco/Very are beset by weedy vocals. Warpaint may well make a great album one day. This one falls frustratingly short.

artslife@thenational.ae