L.A.'s Warpaint wafted, it seems, out of the local underground music scene out there just a few years back, and blew in to the national spotlight like a tempest to become one of the most buzzed about bands of the new year. What else would you expect from 3 lovely women with a cadre of hauntingly beautiful songs and a shared love of The Wu-Tang clan? The band released Exquisite Corpse last year, an album mixed by Red Hot Chilli Pepper John Frusciante, to great fanfare from the so-hip-it-hurts set. Little fun fact about Warpaint; Their first drummer just so happened to be one Shannyn Sossamon an actress best known for her work in A Knight's Tale as well as The Rules of Attraction, but soon quit due to a hectic schedule. Warpaint's sound can best be described as post-rock with vocals. I like their songs, but most seem to lack conventional structure, opting out of the verse-chorus-verse framework. There are only a couple of songs on the EP that follow this blueprint, the most notable being "Billie Holiday", a tune that finds the girls spelling out the title of the song as a chorus all while re-dedicating the song "My Guy" by Mary Wells as the verses. Interesting to say the very least. The rest of the album contains a patchwork of songs that give the overall product a sometimes wistful, sometimes vengeful split personality and creates a dark backdrop for which little melodic points of light are allowed to flicker through. Core members Jenny Lee Lindberg (vocals/bassist), Emily Kokal (vocals/guitar), Theresa Wayman (vocals/guitar) and new addition Stella Mozgawa (drums/keyboards) also shine on the album's standout track, "Elephants" where angelic guitars flutter around a tribal beat that transfixes the listener immediately. I feel like these ladies have major potential and will really start to gel on their next release, which is being recorded as I write this. I can only see myself getting more and more attached to Exquisite Corpse and will more than likely be fully hypnotized by the time Lolla rolls around this year.
Video for "Elephants"
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