38 Days 'til Coachella - Band of Horses / Cloud Cult

I've heard a lot about Band of Horses. I heard I'd probably like them. So tonight, I decided to check them out.

Hard to compare them to anything, I'd say they remind me more of Sunny Day Real Estate than anything, though much less emo. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though the reason I love SDRE is that they're so absolutely pouring of emotion, you can't help but get swept up in what they're doing.

Band of Horses takes a slightly different approach, and in a different time, they might be called simply pop or something else.

However, I have to say that I'm a little disconcerted by them being part of the, "Oh I've heard their stuff on the Brand X commercial!!" bandwagon. I mean, it's ok, but at the same time, this is the second band I know of that's contributed to some pretty major commercials this year (the other one being Cloud Cult for the eSurance commercial).

Now, I have to admit that Justice did sell out to Cadillac, but let's face it, Cadillac's use of Let There Be Light was just absolute genius. Ford's use of BoH's The Funeral wasn't quite as visceral or successful, but it was still pretty effective.

But I'll reserve judgment on Cloud Cult until I hear more than the song for the animated car insurance commercial. I consider this a favor to them. I mean, come on, neither of the aforementioned commercials had to print "Music By" on the screen.

Then again, if it wasn't for that visual on the eSurance commercial, I never would have known it was them. Then again, after listening to them on youtube, I can say they get points for the electronic stuff and the live cello. I really want to hate them but the more I hear of Happy Hippo the more I really want to like them. Jury's out. I just hope they don't talk as much as they did on that live clip from YouTube. It was like a 5 1/2 minute clip and the song was like two minutes long. Hey, I'm open-minded, if you can shut the fuck up long enough to sing a good song you might actually get a nod.

Ut oh, spoke too soon. Now listening to Chemicals Collide on YouTube and it kinda sucks. Not as much as their incessant talking, but more so than Mexican radio. But then the stuff that sucks more than Mexican radio could fill a spectrum of bandwidth taller than Johnny Socko's Giant Fucking Robot.



I am blathering like an idiot, so I'll just say that Band of Horses could be worth checking out, especially if you have one of those special passes that let you drive around the polo field in a Ford Edge.