Peachy Hoop Toss (Two)

Ah, Christmas is over and I have to wait another eight months for pressies. After much nagging from Boface I have blatedly torn myself away from this year's haul to bring you:

Two.
Band of Horses
Cease to Begin
This was a bit of an impulse purchase, just based on a tiny, little review in The Independent & the fact that it has The Moon on the cover. The glowing review mentioned that it was released on the Sub Pop label, which in recent years have produced some superior, happy & crunchy on the outside with a sad & runny centre, morsels of american indie pop, which I like to dub, 'melanjolly' (hands off, NME).

Well, they've done it again. Band of Horses is your new favourite band in the super smashing Sub Pop tradition of The Shins & Rogue Wave, and can now be heard all over late night Radio 1 and 6music. According to my very brief research from the website of lies that is Wikipedia, this is their second album, and bloody brilliant it is too.

It's only once you've listened to it for a few times that you realise the lyrics of the first track (and initial single) 'Is There a Ghost' only contain 14 words, but what perfect words they are. A repeated, but not repetitive chorus over layered guitars, this slow building, exhilarating opener leads into a dreamy 'Ode to LRC' (The website of lies has no information on what LRC stands for). This song, with its soaring refrain of "The World is such a wonderful place" comforted me during the rough times when Katie 'oh dear God' Melua & Eva 'more comebacks than Tupac' Cassidy squatted over the Christmas number one slot with their similarly named, but infinitely less appealing cover of 'What A Wonderful World'.

The lyrics here hit you in your heaving bosom as much as the music. The happy clappy march of 'The General Specific' includes the intriguing thought that "pants have gotta go"; meanwhile amongst the jangling 80s guitars of 'No One's Gonna Love You' comes the line "You are the ever living ghost of what once was" which catches them sounding like a more poetic Stan Lee from the pages of a 1960s Spider-Man comic book.

And on the subject of heaving bosoms, they even find time to throw in a couple of Dolly Parton style country songs into the mix with 'Marry Song' and the fade-to-black finale of 'Window Blues'. A gorgeous end to an exceptional record: "And always in time, I'm never looking over my shoulder, I sing to you, I sing it to you".