New Vibrations: Warpaint

The Fool, Warpaint’s debut full-length album, is drenched with haunting harmonies underscored by an overall ethereal quality.

Listening to it makes one feel like he or she is surrounded by mists, or perhaps underwater, because it just feels completely surreal. The lyrics, though, are also part of what makes this album sound like something that comes from another world.

They are decidedly dark, but they are said in such a calm manner that it seems dreamlike and bizarre.

Although the songs are full of harmony and echoes, they still have a clear melody.

The instruments back the music up, but do not overpower it, as so many albums are bound to have these days.

These songs are really more about the lyrics and the creepy way they are presented. In the third track, “Undertow,” Warpaint sings, “Why you wanna blame me for your troubles? / Ah ah ah you better learn your lesson yourself / Nobody ever has to find out what’s in my mind tonight,” without any hint of emotion that might be gleamed from simply reading the lyrics, making the song feel distant from the listeners.

It’s like there is a wall built up between the songs and the listeners, keeping the latter from hearing everything unless they think about it further.

This isn’t an album that one can just take at face value.

The way the voices of the singers, Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman, blend together create an echo that makes it seem like the music is far away from the listeners, drifting through mountains and carried by the wind.

The lyrics can be heavy, like “Shadow”’s “I know I’m afraid / I’m drunk and I’m tired / And the city I walk in feels like it swallows,” but no matter how heavy the lyrics get, the band never loses its ethereal quality, so these aren’t songs that will drag you down.

Although the mystic quality has an eccentric quality that one doesn’t usually find in many albums these days, it can be a bit much, causing the listener to lose interest after a while.

The singing isn’t bad, but hearing the music sung with very few variations in volume causes the listener to zone out sometimes, meaning that they can’t get everything the lyrics have to offer.

Sure, the lyrics can be rich and full of meaning, but it doesn’t mean anything unless the audience feels compelled to listen to the album all the way through.

The mistiness of Kokal and Wayman’s voices isn’t something that detracts from the album, but the lack of variation is, and if that were fixed, the lyrics could play a much larger role than what they currently do.

The notes blend from one to another, breaking down borders between individual notes, but the singing often appears unclear, drowned in the echos and long melodic lines held throughout the song.

There is no one genre that could be used to describe what Warpaint has produced in this nine album track.

It’s a curious blend of indie, alternative, rock, and even goth, and this makes this album unique and worth at least a listen.

The band is obviously confident in what they do and in the lyrics they write. For sure, you’d be a fool to pass up The Fool.