Band of Horses - Cease to Begin

Released in March of 2006, Band of Horses debut Everything All the Time made good on thepromise hinted at in their early shows and demos. The band went from early shows opening forfriends Iron & Wine, to playing on The Late Show with David Letterman by July, and being nominatedas one of ten finalists (along with Joanna Newsom, Beirut, Tom Waits, and, the eventual winner,Cat Power) for the Shortlist Music Prize for that same year. And the record was well-receivedcritically, with celebratory press in Spin, Entertainment Weekly, NY Times, Harp, Billboard, Pitchfork,Magnet, NME, Uncut, and a slew of others. Not a bad place to start.For a lot of reasons, Cease to Begin is the perfect title for this new record. Not only do thesongs themselves weave this theme through the record, but stopping and starting anew is alsoa reflection of the past year and a half for Band of Horses. Though they worked with producerPhil Ek again, as they did on Everything All the Time, much has changed between the fairlyrecent then and now. There have been band members who have come and gone, including MatBrooke, who left the band to pursue other interests and his own band. For core members BenBridwell, Rob Hampton and Creighton Barrett, there has been a move from Seattle, WA to Mt.Pleasant, SC, a relocation that had been planned for some time so that they could all be closerto their families. And, close friends and family have come and gone some far too early. Necessarilyshot through with these experiences, the songs on Cease to Begin are strikingly beautiful, if lesselliptical and more straightforward, with more sophisticated arrangements than the last record.

1. Is There a Ghost
2. Ode to LRC
3. No One's Gonna Love You
4. Detlef Schrempf
5. The General Specific
6. Lamb on the Lam
7. Islands on the Coast
8. Marry Song
9. Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
10. Window Blues
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