Along with a nice iTunes Christmas gift certificate from Jeffro, he pretty much pulled a “Dubya” and issued an executive order for me to invest some of it in the Band of Horses sophomore bits, “Cease to Begin.” “It’s right up your alley,” raved Jeff. I seem to recall this effort being his #1 record of 2007. Track one, “Is There A Ghost” builds an echoey tempo to the one-minute mark then just explodes to the guitar/bass/drums wall of noise that dominates my aforementioned sonic alley. That’s where it ends. To me, the rest of the record is a mostly mellow affair with vocals that remind me of Yes’s Jon Anderson. I listened for what grabbed Jeff, but other than track 5, the reasoning eludes me. Could it be that simple? Track five has hand claps… Jeff always applauds handfuls of rhythm.
hah! I had the same reaction when I first heard them. All I can tell you is you’d better not give up. Gotta trust on this one.