Lead single 'Knock Knock' is strangely gutted, hinting at an emotional catharsis that never arrives. Mirage Rock, in comparison, seems shrunken and cold.

But he used to make up for it by pushing his music out as wide as it would go, until it wrapped you up like the warmest of bear hugs. Going deep was never Bridwell's specialty, even on Band of Horses' good records. And Bridwell has neither the lyrical insight nor the vocal gravitas to go any deeper than its superficial veneer allows. Much of the album falls into the mold of 'Slow Cruel Hands of Time', a hazy folk-pop tune that aspires to the soft-focus comfort of 1970s AM radio staples like Dan Fogelberg and John Denver. The rush of emotions Band of Horses channeled on its first two albums has slowed to an intermittent trickle, collecting into a very shallow and sad-looking puddle of a record containing nothing and reflecting nothing.īand of Horses was never the hardest riffing band in the world, but it's disheartening to see just how far they've moved away from actual rock music here. If Infinite Arms marked a significant turn away from the starry-eyed, backwoods indie rock of the band's early sound, Mirage Rock moves boldly forward into the realm of radio-conscious pop that its predecessor only toyed with- although 'bold' may be too strong a word for a record this mellow and inoffensive. But if you cared about this group at all, it was difficult to hear that album and not try to pick out the things that made Band of Horses what it used to be, even if most of those things had been systematically removed by Bridwell and replaced by a flatter, shinier, more overtly southern rock sound. Frontmen retaining a group identities despite losing their backing musicians is nothing new, of course, and Bridwell made sure to publicly declare Infinite Arms a very different beast from the first two BoH records. By 2010's Infinite Arms, which found the band signing to Columbia, Bridwell had shed another member and added two more.

The original members- including Mat Brooke, who had been a bandmate of Bridwell's since their days together in the Seattle indie rock band Carissa's Wierd- had quietly departed.

With 2007's Cease to Begin, Bridwell unveiled a version of Band of Horses that was not the Band of Horses of the group's beloved 2006 debut, Everything All the Time. He is a DJ, rapper, and the leader of the Fresh Beat Band.Band of Horses themselves have become something of an apparition- what they appear to be aren't what they really are. Twist is the protagonist of The Fresh Beat Band.

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