Band of Horses, the new Coldplay?

Last night Band of Horses played in Utrecht. Pitchfork aren't known to be extremely generous but gave their debut album Everything All The Time an 8.8! It's filled with a sharp guitar sound which is completed by the singer's emotional voice. He sounds like he is singing and shouting out his frustrations. The second album will be recorded shortly and now they are on tour in Europe.

My first thought evoked by the sight of the singer was that of a fearful young man, with a Taliban beard and a baseball cap almost covering his eyes. When he opened his mouth and sang, those thoughts were gone however. His voice is at least as good as it is on record and the band played dynamically and punchy, never failing to hit the right notes. With three guitars and keys, they sound full, but somehow it's never 'too much'. On some songs the singer plays pedal steel, which looks cool and sounds beautiful. Besides songs from their debut they played some new songs which sound in line with their present album. The one downside of the show was their encore which were two unknown songs, one of which was a ballad that sounded like Billy Joel and not really like BoH. One song was noticeably absent, namely the great St. Augustine (maybe they didn't want to bring Spanish guitars on the road?). The singer gives the band a unique voice which may make it sound too distinguished to be picked up by a bigger audience (like Coldplay for instance), despite being uncharacteristically radio friendly. As I said their second album will be recorded shortly, so they might just hit a stadium near you next year...

The song Our Swords is very special, it has no guitars in it, just drum’n bass. Two basses to be exactly, one played by the singer. Check this movie:

Their best song is Funeral (live version), which is about the cancer and death of the singers father.