Cease to Respin

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.