Warpaint - Heads Up

Warpaint
Heads Up
2016
Spotify

Downtempo music is tough. All at once you are likely to be accused of being to sleepy, when maybe that was the point in the first place. The rubber meets the road however when you finally decide whether a song is intentionally downtempo or just boring. Warpaint seem to know this fact and create songs accordingly that are postrock yet not shoegaze, or postpunk but not hardcore what so ever. In the past this was the case, but on this new record Heads Up, the ladies of Warpaint have sought to bring in more elements from Hip Hop and R&B to varying degrees of success. The changes are quite evident on "By Your Side" as you can hear hip hop beats being toyed with throughout the track. The only issue is they simply aren't that good at it. It sounds like a lot of experimentation with very little real delivery of the goods. They aren't entrenched in that world, so their ability to manipulate it is quite basic. However when their vocal delivery sides closer to the R&B world it does have a pretty solid sound. "New Song" has this really great almost new jack swing vibe to it and gets the hips moving from almost the first note. This track in particular is also far more poppy than anything they have done before yet it still is super engaging.

"The Stall" is another powerful song in a very different way. Where "New Song" is just a hook and some dancey beats "The Stall" builds the tension almost in a shoegaze kind of way pulling you along to the place Warpaint wants you to be. The changes in their style on this new album however are so minimal that the big deal that was made of them using so many hip hop artists as influences is almost a mute point. There are a great deal of really cool moments like the end of "So Good" but what Warpaint have yet to be able to do is put all those elements together all at once rather than sporadically throughout the record. "Don't Wanna" is a big backslide and is so incredibly sleepy that anyone who keeps their eyes open for the whole track deserves some kind of special award. The sudo guitar solo at the end of the track is also just a pointless attempt at being some kind of jam band. Warpaint really do feel like a band searching for an identity and a sound that is wholly their own, but this stumbling around to find it is no way to release music. There are flashes of greatness here, but calling a song "Dre" does not a hip hop inspired album make.

6.9 out of 10