Favourite Albums: Warpaint – The Fool

If you ever get the chance to see Warpaint, do it. Live shows are truly ethereal experience, blending between mellow, heart-string-pulling shoegaze and bouncing, groovy experimental rock which leaves you wondering what on earth to do with your body.

The Fool – released in 2010 – was Warpaint’s first full album release as a successor to Exquisite Corpse, their debut EP. Songs from both releases still frequently make live setlists, and although the band has since experimented with more electronic influences in the self-titled follow-up and third album Heads Up, the band is still very much in touch with its dreamy-yet-punchy experimentation.

If The Fool is your first experience of Warpaint, you’re immediately greeted by Emily Kokal’s breathy vocals in the opener, “Set Your Arms Down”, which weave their way over an assured percussive pattern which carries the song on an ever-intensifying journey.

Helpfully, “Warpaint” is the next song (although unhelpfully, they couldn’t save it for Warpaint, their second album…), opening with a heady and hazy pair of guitar tracks which are sweetened by Kokal’s voice, before breaking into an irresistibly-dancey jaunt through the initial gloominess of the background instrumentation.

Kokal’s not the only star vocalist in the band, and lead guitarist Theresa Wayman can match her bandmate’s dulcet whispers – in fact, the two duet on “Undertow”, a real live favourite. Originally conceived as a cover to Nirvana’s “Polly”, the song took on a life of its own and brings an acceptably-slow pace to the album before bursting into a gorgeously assertive bridge.

Wayman assumes lead vocal duty for “Bees” and “Shadows”, where she’s able to effortlessly cut through the dark, warbling atmosphere of both songs. “Bees”, like “Undertow”, is another song which opens tentatively before bursting into something far more zealous, and although the guitar work is largely without bells and whistles, it’s so damn effective. “Shadows” is a slow-mover, but the sparse piano and gutsy percussion from Stella Mozgawa gives it plenty of life, along with Wayman’s cathartic cries as the song slowly grows.

Time for a complete change. “Composure” offers a real red-herring opener, a clear, percussion-led repetition of an, erm, painful-sounding phrase (go and listen) before switching into something that manages to be simultaneously soft and energetic; Kokal’s bold voice softens the drumwork and perfectly complements the effect-heavy guitar before the song comes full circle. Seriously, they’re singing what you think they are.

“Baby” is the softest song yet and, compared to the psychedelic influences of the previous lineup, is beautifully simple. I can’t really sit and write any pseudo-intellectual musical dissections of it, it’s just a bloody lovely song. It’s dreamy. It’s – at times, at least – heart-wrenching.

The atmosphere then becomes slightly more overcast as the dark and swirling guitar effects returns to lead “Majesty”, a moody song enhanced by the reverberating, squelching effect-play in the background. Then, Warpaint freshen things up for the final track. “Lissie’s Heart Murmur”, the only truly piano-led song on the album. Treatments add a sibilant, airy quality to the already-whispering vocals, closing the nine-track collection with bittersweet key-playing and Mozgawa’s dauntless percussion.

Today, the Deluxe edition of the album also carries a copy of the Exquisite Corpse EP, which the band describes as a “younger sister” to The Fool. Stylistically it’s very similar, although Kokal and Wayman both explore perhaps a greater vocal range, adding more robust lyricism to their hauntingly saccharine tones. Oh, and it’s got my favourite song on it. (Krimson, if you’re asking. Oh, you weren’t?)