Band Of Horses new album is a live acoustic album, live from The Ryman. The album opens with their song Marry Song, which starts with some nice piano and acoustic work and the crowd cheer at what I assume, is the lead vocalist entering the stage. The vocals start up pretty quickly after that and the vocals are heavenly. Incredibly easy to listen to and the harmonies of vocalists Ben and Mat is astounding. Their voices go really well together. The piano and guitar playing is also incredibly complex and extremely well put together. The song goes on a little bit though and towards the end you’ll just stop listening and let it play in the background.
The song, No One’s Gonna Love You opens to some bass heavy guitar riff and cheering. The vocals start and it goes quiet. The guitar throughout the song is very complex and very relaxing. The song really shows of the vocal ability, as does the whole album, but the mixture of the dreamy, diverse vocals and complex guitar really give this a track a feel good atmosphere.
The Funeral is the bands first single and sounds superb acoustic and live. The song opens with a soothing piano track and the crowd go wild, but the second the vocals kick in all that can be heard is a few whistles and cheers throughout the song which is a huge contrast. The song picks up and some other instruments kick in including a really odd sounding a guitar and some orchestral instruments that really add some depth and some more warm feeling to the song. The piano in this track really shines and at the faster bits of the song it’s very funky and you’ll want to bob your head along.
Overall the album really shows off the bands musical talent with some fantastic demonstrations of their guitar and piano ability and their vocals really shines through. The crowd sound really impressed and are extremely loud at the start and end of each song. The natural sound of the venue is really picked up in the songs and probably adds to the bands vocals giving them natural enhancements so it’s not that raw, but it’s still a chilled out record. However it is a bit forgettable. It’s the sort of thing that would play in a shop and you’d think “This is nice, wonder who it is?” but make no effort to find out.
7/10
