New Band of Horses

I can't say I was a particularly big fan of Band of Horses' first album, Everything All The Time. They seemed to be trying a bit too hard to sound like My Morning Jacket, except I didn't think their songs were as good as MMJ's, and lead singer Ben Bridwell's voice was nowhere near as good as Jim James'. In fact, for some reason Bridwell's voice just really grates at me, and I can't really explain why.

Well, the band has a new album coming out on October 9th called Cease to Begin, and the first single from the album, "Is There a Ghost", has been making the rounds. It's ok. It's more upbeat than a lot of their last album, but Bridwell's voice still annoys me, and the song basically repeats the same thing over and over again. I think Ben's telling us that he could sleep.
Band of Horses, "Is There A Ghost"

If you're so inclined, you can pre-order Cease to Begin over at Sub Pop Records. Apparently there's a track on the album named after former NBA player Detlef Schrempf, so that's kinda cool I guess, because not enough indie bands name songs after tall white German basketball players. Honestly, I think it would have been more interesting if they'd paid tribute to Detlef's former teammate, Shawn Kemp, and named songs after Shawn's (alleged) numerous illegitimate children.

You can also hear more Band of Horses over on MySpace.