Warpaint “Exquisite Corpse EP” Review

Some music just seems to be tailor made for late nights. You know the ones, where the clock is taunting you and sleep is nowhere to be found. The kind of time when your problems and demons seem to creep out from the deep caverns where you store them during the day, those sacred daytime hours where you are dutifully wrapped up in you job, errands and other facets of life that allow you to push the deep stuff to the back of your mind. While most music that soundtracks these nights tends to be darkly hypnotic, often led by coolly calculated electronic instruments, there is a new contender for a spot in your stereo with the debut EP, Exquisite Corpse, from the Los Angeles-based band Warpaint

The six song EP is dark and sexy, with three women (Jenny Lee Lindberg [bass], Emily Kokal [guitar], and Theresa Wayman [guitar/keys]) adding serene vocals to the group’s understated musical soundscapes. The songs are long and drawn out, with half being over six minutes. Starting with opening track “Stars,” the group uses a restrained, measured approach that is very similar to the great sound of the xx. The guitar and bass lines are simple, never giving away more than they need to in their quest to create a textured backdrop for the provocative vocals. The drums are used not as a device simply to keep time, but as a weapon that is used at the band’s disposal when they need to ramp up or cool down a song.

“Elephants” charges and centers around a swirling riff which features dark and twisted effects that serve the purpose of deconstructing the vocals. When the effects are stripped from the vocals, the vocalist’s piercing singing becomes even more dramatic after hearing the cold, processes singing that preceded them. “Billie Holiday” is a cheeky but successful pop song that I could see being the one that propels the band to bigger audiences. Starting out behind a sparse acoustic guitar riff, the song eventually morphs into the lyrics from “My Guy.” While the original Motown song was a testament of dedication and a happy song, the somber arrangement of this version has much darker undertones.

“Beetles” is up next, which finds the band experimenting with the effects of a lean drum rhythm. The bass is pulsing, but low in the mix, and guitar stabs in and out during the track. While this could be a funky and upbeat track in different hands, Warpaint finds a way to make it gloomy and reserved, even with all that is going on. Things slow down considerably with “Burgundy,” which takes a while to wrestle free from its intro before the song springs to life. There are some excellent vocal harmonies over a marching drum beat and some textured musical flourishes. The album ends with the multi-part jam “Krimson.” Starting out with a simple guitar line, the song quickly morphs into a spaced out jam with some rollicking bass. While there is potential for the song to really break away from the shackles, the band sticks to their guns and delivers another great, hazy, mid tempo psychedelic pop song.

There are many reasons this album succeeds, but in the end it comes down to the fact that the band, like the xx, is doing more with less. In stripping all the fat, while leaving just the necessary components, Warpaint has created one of the best debut albums of this year.