Warpaint – Heads Up

THE UNDERSTATED WIDESCREEN DESOLATION of their eponymous second album marked a breakthrough for Warpaint, their artfully washed-out funk-punk making more sense than ever. The follow-up, Heads Up, balances that downbeat vibe with more upbeat, poppy elements, creating a tension that’s electric – New Song welds its subterranean bassline, smudgy rhythms and wiry sonics to busy melodies and multilayered vocals straight from modern R&B radio, while the glitchy funk of So Good and Don’t Wanna’s blend of minimal drum-machine writhe and murmured harmonies similarly plot new directions within the group’s all-pervading (but oddly danceable) melancholy. This darkness anchors their sleek, bleak grooves, suggesting the psychic ghosts that come to haunt the glamorous when their party’s over; the acoustic introspection of closer Today Dear makes that mood explicit, a hushed, intimate 3am breakdown sounding like Cat Power via Simon And Garfunkel, stripping Warpaint’s deliciously enduring downer vibe to its barest elements. Listen to Whiteout...