How is it that this album doesn’t have an explicit warning? The free song “Laredo” has an f-bomb dropped in the middle of it. I love the music, but I don’t my kids running around the house singing about “a kitchen knife f-ed in my face.” That’s what those explicit warning are for, right?
Rating: 3 / 5

I heard the single “Laredo” and immediately knew I liked the new mellifluous sound, so I bought the new album on its release date. I immediately detected My Morning Jacket influences throughout, especially the album’s first song, “Factory” and the twelfth track “Neighbor.” I even hear some Beach Boys like in the song “For Annabelle.” Bright and effulgent, Infinite Arms should please fans of Ronderlin, My Morning Jacket, Radio Dept., and Avi Buffalo.
Rating: 5 / 5

For some reason, I had possessed the intuitive theory that credible rock bands with country influences were less susceptible to deteriorations in quality over time: This is probably due to implicit (and naïve) associations with “country” music as embodying a “classic” form of music, largely incapable of becoming tainted over time (e.g. The Band, Bob Dylan, etc.). This is a theory that has not stood the test of time following Band of Horses’ three albums. Despite a remarkably impressive debut on 2006’s Everything All The Time, the group backslided somewhat on 2008’s Cease to Begin, and the band continues to do on their most recent effort, Infinite Arms.

To explain the problematic aspects of Infinite Arms, we first need a brief review of what made Everything All The Time so great: Largo to mid tempos, frequently unintelligible lyrics shrouded in reverb, melodies placed in vocal ranges accessible only by condors, and balls-to-the-wall hail storms of electric guitars. Conversely, like Cease to Begin, Infinite Arms represents a further “disrobing” of all the attractive raiment that dressed Everything All the Time so nicely.

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For example, the vocal performances are often “overexposed” by the album’s heavier reliance on acoustic guitars, where the band previously benefited from positioning vocalist Ben Bridwell’s voice as a “signal in the noise” of Band of Horse’s dust storms of country rock. Toothless album opener “Factory” is reminiscent of Herman’s Hermits on Quaaludes, in spite the song’s featuring the oft employed BoH “white boy slow jam” rhythms.

In other instances, songs sound somewhat hurried and perhaps unfinished: To its credit, the unexpected Brian Wilson-esque stacked vocal harmonies found at the start of “Blue Beard” represent an intriguing change up in contrast to the first several songs. Likewise, the song’s complex vocal arrangements on display are equally impressive. However, the number comes too close to resembling Starland Vocal Band’s “Afternoon Delight” before the song and its accompanying vocal fireworks are extinguished prematurely by a noticeably abrupt ending.

Likewise, the up tempo numbers (e.g. “Laredo”, “Northwest Apartment” also lack the pensive moods conveyed by even the fastest songs on Everything All The Time, featuring guitar playing that is emotionally vacant, if musically competent.

A final startling aspect to Infinite Arms involves the occasions where its songs and their production seem at moments to resemble the frequently lambasted latter day compositions of Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, power pop’s fallen angel. “Compliments” features the shuffled drum beat and similar chord progression found on Maladroit’s “Keep Fishin’”, while “Dilly” is marked by Cuomo’s predilections for taut power chords, dulled pianos, and synths that don’t so much wiggle as they make unsuccessful parasitic attempts to enter the body; similarly, “Evening Kitchen” relies heavily upon the treacled vocal harmonies favored by latter day Weezer.

In closing, returning to my initial assessment, BoH is a band has lamentably devolved from quality, country-inflected indie rock in favor of milddle-of-the-road generica. BoH would be better served by returning to their previous approach of Everything All The Time, an album whose success rested in contemplative (borderline brooding/melancholic) numbers with considerably hazier song arrangements.
Rating: 2 / 5