Mirage Rock is the fourth studio album by Band of Horses and was released on September 18, 2012 on Columbia Records. Produced by Glyn Johns, the album was preceded by the single, 'Knock Knock'. While the album was initially met with generally favorable reviews, the band and fans alike have since become quite critical of it, with Bridwell admitting Mirage Rock to be stilted and insincere. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 2Cd Band Of Horses/Mirage Rock Deluxe at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products! Origin ZIP Code, destination ZIP Code and time of acceptance and will depend on shipping service selected and receipt of cleared payment. Delivery times may vary, especially. Band of Horses Mirage Rock Vinyl Tracklist Side A: Knock Knock How To Live Slow Cruel Hands Of Time A Little Biblical Shut-in Tourist Dumpster World Side B: Electric Music Everything's Gonna Be Undone Feud Long Vows Heartbreak On.
Stream Mirage Rock, a playlist by Band Of Horses from desktop or your mobile device. Mirage Rock by Band Of Horses published on 2012-09-07T22:26:01Z. Contains tracks. Knock Knock by Band Of Horses published on 2012-07-06T15:40:34Z. How to Live by Band Of. 'Mirage Rock' is the fourth album by the Band of Horses. To my humble opinion, it's the lesser one of those four. It's because the album feels like the band is drifting toward 'middle of the road' rootsrockmusic. The style is not distinctive compared to the previous albums. But luckilly the band still have their distinctive sound and their voices.
Band of Horses is a band from Seattle, formed in 2004 by the vocalist Ben Bridwell. He decided to start a new band after the break-up of his previous group. There were no problems with finding new musicians, and soon Band of Horses began to play in Seattle. During one joint show with Iron & Wine Ben and the musicians of his band attracted attention of Sub Pop. Later the contract was signed and Band of Horses started to work in the studio. In 2005 they released their first EP titled Tour EP. First records were sold exclusively during the shows only and on Sub Pop's official website.
In 2005 the band started recording their first full-length album, and by 2006 everything was ready. The debut album was titled Everything All the Time and it received fair reviews. However, there were some changes within the group: soon after Everything All the Time was ready, Band of Horses got the new drummer: Creighton Barrett. The first single from the debut album The Funeral was used in many TV shows, computer games and advertisements. The band was gaining popularity, and in 2006 the musicians were invited to Late Show with David Letterman, where they performed The Funeral. By that time Mat Brooke had already quitted the band. He noted that he had never been a formal member. It all started when during one show Ben invited him to play couple of songs. Mat agreed, and later he even participated in the album recording. Brooke said that Band of Horses was first of all Ben’s project, and Mat wanted to see what he could do by himself. Thereby he started the band Grand Archives. They signed to Sub Pop and released two records.
The group’s second studio work Cease To Begin was released in 2007. At that moment the trio of Ben Bridwell, Creighton Barrett and Rob Hampton was the core of the band. Ryan Monroe played the keyboards. The album Cease To Begin turned out to be very successful: it was named 47th best album of 2007 by Rolling Stone. Also in 2007 Tyler Ramsey and Bill Reynolds joined the Band of Horses. In 2010 the band released their third studio work titled Infinite Arms. It was produced by the members of Band of Horses, with additional help from Phil Ek. Many musical magazines already gave the album good reviews, and the original sound of Seattle band will be enjoyed both by the old fans and by those who have not listened to Band of Horses yet.
Band Of Horses has always really been Ben Bridwell. Bearded and blue-collared, he’s the archetypal honest every-man of rock. Saddled with songwriting responsibilities, he’s been the common denominator amid personnel changes, constant touring and relocation, releasing records on his own label (albeit with major backing). His stewardship has seen a rise precipitated by the success of first LP Everything All the Time’s all-conquering The Funeral that culminated in a career-high Grammy nomination for 2010’s Infinite Arms.
Mirage Rock, however, is a very different proposition. Remarkably for a band’s fourth offering, it’s only the second that’s the product of a consistent group, the lineup unchanged from Infinite Arms. Settled, Bridwell has duly slackened the reins, adopting a relaxed, collective writing and recording process to capture a sound that’s “loose and raw at times”. Also, the record’s title doesn’t reference a real place, Bridwell calling that notion “a total piss take”. The results, sadly, are sometimes just that, but the joke doesn’t reflect well on anyone. Bridwell’s output has always had a nebulous quality, straddling the divide between standard form and idiosyncratic verve with ease; straight-ahead songs elevated and given a workaday grace. Listening to Mirage Rock it becomes abundantly clear that, shorn of his control, little of the material stands up.
Matters begin decently enough with Knock Knock, a serviceable slab of Southern rock, sputtering along on carefree falsetto and jackhammer guitars. All the Band Of Horses hallmarks are there, yet there’s no focus or heft, no urgency. The back-of-a-fag-packet lyrics tell of a “ramshackle crew with something to prove and a truckload of belief,” once a simple statement of fact, but now one that really is mirage rock. A repeated trick that’s suddenly fooling no-one.
Serviceable is the record’s watchword. As it unfolds, the band feel for something new, but mostly flounder in a Neil Young aping, graspless daze, all soft focus am fare. The close harmonies of Slow Cruel Hands, a song obsessed with the passage of time (a theme long-established in Young’s canon) and the cascading arpeggio guitar of Shut-In Tourist are both pretty, as is the lachrymose Roy Rogers-lope of Long Vows, but they don’t inspire close inspection or repeated listening, undercut by barely-there production. The atmosphere is unfussy but diffuse, as if dampened with gauze. Bridwell’s voice – normally soaring and proudly ragged, doused with reverb, is suddenly neutered and tired.
Stripping back production means the band are forced to show their songwriting hand, but they’re only holding two cards, emasculated rock and aimless jangle, and that’s a worry. Things begin splitting apart at the seams especially when, shorn of ideas, they merely combine the two: the white bread drawl of How To Live, a country ramble bookended by faster sections, while shoehorning a rock section in Dumpster World is almost risible, making it jarringly hackneyed. Electric Music is tiresome, hamstrung by a feckless lyric, and the damage is done by the time the genuinely heady Feud rolls around – one of the few successes – yet its incendiary “I want you to fail!” rings ironically.
Band Of Horses have always been more than the sum of their parts, so the decision to finally explore a settled band dynamic made a lot of sense. Yet it’s too comfortable, old ideas diluted to homeopathic proportions, results half-hearted and strangely spiritless, songs feeling overly long. Where Bridwell’s restless wandering once gave him the latitude to absorb all manner of Americana, channelling it in subtly impressive three-minute doses, settled surroundings make matters feel staid, lacking any sort of visceral thrill that peppers the band’s back catalogue. If he thrives on change and control, it’s time for another upheaval.