Band Of Horses
Cease To Exist

By Jeff Ehrbar

What made Band of Horses’ debut album, Everything All the Time, so good wasn’t the songwriting. While the album included some engaging hooks, most of the lyrics were either indecipherable or too oblique to comprehend. Instead, Everything All the Time succeeded on performance. Under Phil Elk’s production, BOH’s twin guitars played off each other, cascading majestically against the warmth of Ben Bridwell’s patient, optimistic vocals. But on BOH’s follow-up, Cease to Exist, either Elk or singer-guitarist Ben Bridwell made the decision to tighten the sound and rein in the guitar work. Without the spiraling, free-form playing of Bridwell and fellow guitarist Mat Brooke (who has left the band), Cease to Exist emphasizes Bridwell’s songwriting, which isn’t bad, but is simply not the band’s major strength.

The opening song, “Is There a Ghost,” illustrates this deficiency. BOH attempts to build on the song’s sparse lyrics (“I could sleep/when I lived alone/is there a ghost in my house?”) with driving, pounding chords. It could be argued “Is There a Ghost” is an incomplete song. Since the song never changes direction, it ends top-heavy and pointless.   “Island on the Coast” also suffers from this head-on, hook-less approach. With guitars speeding instead of soaring, the song’s repetitiveness grows tiresome. Of the up-tempo songs, “Cigarettes, Wedding Bands” (weddings and marriage are central themes on the disc) is the best, as Bridwell’s guitar playing recalls the debut CD. “Ode to LRC” (What is the LCR? A town? A restaurant?) gets by on Bridwell’s unabashed, non-ironic announcement that “the world is just a wonderful place.”