Band of Horses – Perennial Indie Rock Music Favorites

Perennial Indie rock music favorites from Seattle, Band of Horses, will be headlining the concert at the new Fox Theater in Pomona, CA on August 29th of 2009. At the time of this writing, tickets are already on sale. This is after they’ve been to Helsinki, Finland to headline at club Tavastia earlier in that month (August 18th). This will be the band’s final stop on their Scandinavian tour that will see them at the Oya Festival in Oslo, the Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, and the Beatday Festival in Copenhagen.

Band of Horses exploded onto the rock music scene in 2006 and immediately began drawing critical parallels between themselves and early Neil Young (Crazy Horse…Band of Horses…it fits). Mat Brooke promptly left the band he’d founded, so that former Carissa’s Weird (the dead band that Horses rose Phoenix-like up out from the death of) bassist Ben Bridwell was left to be the Horses’ band leader. This seems like it took care of one of the great criticisms of Band of Horses: juvenility. Not that Brooke was necessarily any more immature than any of the other youngsters in the band, but since he dominated perhaps nobody else had enough input. This is now not the case, and Band of Horses definitely showed some signs of maturity on their follow up album “Cease to Begin.”

The second album doesn’t feature the light-hearted romp into bad craziness about the lovely time one has smoking ganja with a song like “Weed Party” off the first album. But there’s a lazy-rockin’ song named after the German version of basketball legend Larry Bird called “Detlef Schrempf,” a guy who never achieved the fame (although nobody really knows what the Bridwell lyrics are really about). But there are plenty of more mature good times to be had on the album, too. “The General Specific” is an artfully simple, catchy pop-rock song with a touch of philosophy thrown in; “Lamb on the Lam” is a nicely-done instrumental piece; and the “Marry Song” shows off some Southern Rock experimentation. “Is There a Ghost?” opens the album and has become one of Horses’ fan favorites, with its driving eighth-note clean-toned electric guitar strumming and reverb-saturated vocals.

Much of the band’s first-album material is still beloved of fans and if you go to see them kick out the jams live, you can rest assured that you’ll be hearing much of it. “First Song” and “Wicked Gil” won’t be vanishing from the set list anytime soon. I can’t imagine a Band of Horses show without them doing “The Great Salt Lake,” either. That’s a song that connects these indie rockers with the classic rockers like Crazy Horse and The Band who clearly have made such an impact on them.

So if you’re lookin’ to rock this summer (and in the future) and you’ll be in their area, get out of the house and catch those Horses. You won’t regret it.