Band of Horses - Inifinite Arms

Just picked up the new album from Band of Horses this week called Infinite Arms. Having been a big fan of their first 2 albums I had built up a pretty high level of expectation. These expectations were raised when I caught a clip of one song 'NW Apt' off the album a few days prior to purchasing, so I was amped going into it (not always a good thing).

So I bought from JB Hifi and hurried back to the car to listen and was first greeted by a very low key song to open the album entitled 'Factory' which caught me a bit off guard as I was expecting a bit more oompf for the first song. Though 'Is there a ghost' was the opening track from Cease to Begin which started off slow but it certainly kicked in whereas Factory never gets momentum.

Moving on, the next 2 tracks are solid 'Compliments' (the single) and 'Laredo' then comes one of if not the best track 'Blue Beard' filled with cool melodies, still very chilled but has a classic BOH sound that is unmistakable. One of the beauties of this band is that when you hear their stuff you can't mistake them for anyone else.

From there the album keeps a very slow-medium pace, until Dilly which is a cool beach boys type country pop song. Then only at track 11 do we get to the kick @#!*% driving bass thumping NW Apt. The only song that raises the bar in terms of beats per minute and distorted guitar.

So like I said at the start, my hopes were up after Cease to Begin, which was pretty much flawless, so it was always gonna be hard to top that. Cease also had only 9 tracks (+ a less than 1 min track), Infinite Arms has 12, so if we were to shave off the 3 worst songs it does stack up better.
Unfortunately I don't think there is any song here that will really open them up in terms of singles. this being their major label debut I thought there would be something like that?
Anyway, in summary, too many slow songs, interest lacks in the 2nd half of the album, but enough here to keep me interested for a while. 3.5/5

Band of Horses will be playing the Powerstation on 3 August. Tickets on sale now!
Check out Blue Beard Live
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74OKIsePtgg

The Avengers

With the recent release of Iron Man 2 it got me again thinking about the Avengers Movie. For those who don't know the avengers are the Superhero Team that comprises some of the greatest Marvel characters around, some of which have had movies already.
So, to begin with we had the 'real' Hulk movie, starring Edward Norton which was released around 2 years ago, that was then followed by the highly acclaimed Iron Man, which may have been the biggest unexpected hit of the Summer 2008. Now more recently we've had the release of the second Iron Man movie, which I can say is also really good with a much stronger villain in this one. So thats two of our heroes, who will make up the rest? Well, just round the corner next year is the first Thor movie, Starring Chris Hemsworth - he's come a long way from Home and Away! And shortly after that, also next year is the Captain America movie. Called Captain America The First Avenger, which sounds as though it will lead right into the Avengers movie.
Over the years there has been a lot of different heroes making up the team, but here is the list for the movie:
Hulk
Iron Man
Thor
Captain America
Nick Fury
Whatever happens its going to be an epic 2012!