Some girls grow up playing with dolls and some grow up learning dope bass lines. I guess Warpaint’s Jenny Lee Lindberg fits into the latter category. Along with vocalists Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman, (both also on guitar) Jenny Lee Lindberg and drummer Stella Mozgawa have adopted a style that will blow you away and throw you into a trance. The band has featured a number of other prominent members over the years including guitarist Josh Klinghoffer (currently a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and vocalist and drummer Shannyn Sossamon who’s also starred in movies like “A Knight’s Tale,” “40 Days and 40 Nights” and “Wristcutters: A Love Story.” *Fun fact, both Shannyn Sossamon and Theresa Wayman had roles in the film “Rules of Attraction” one of my favorite movies and if you haven’t seen it drop everything you’re doing and go watch it right now.

Warpaint is an LA based Indie Rock band that’s been pushing the envelope of post-punk indie rock and doing it better than most of their male counterparts for close to a decade now. Warpaint’s innovative instrumentals, their drum rhythms and bass lines in particular as well as sick echoey vocals place them among the best contemporary bands out there (in my opinion) and thankfully they’ve been getting a whole lot of attention since dropping their latest self-titled album “Warpaint” less than a week ago.

The new album has a distinct sound that’s both dark and mellow (you knew Warpaint’s had a dark side after they released an album titled “Exquisite Corpse”); way ahead of its time, borrowing and utilizing R&B rhythms and grooves extensively and incorporating and blending them to create their own trademark trancy, echoey sound. I can’t call Warpaint’s music psychedelic but some of the songs certainly exhibit some similarities with psychedelic rock and it gives them a really awesome dream like sound.

This spaced out/dream like sound was amplified and inspired by their surroundings. “Warpaint” was recorded in the Californian desert at Joshua Tree National Park which you can read more about in Oyster Magazine’s interview with the band. No doubt being in the desert alone for extended periods of time, completely separated from any distractions allowed them to experiment and focus on producing the best music they possibly could and it paid off. While listening to the album for a second time I couldn’t help but visualize Joshua Tree the whole time; the album became sort of like a soundtrack to a night-time time-lapse video of Joshua Tree.

“Warpaint”: The intro on the new album is fantastic; a dark and thoughtful instrumental piece that sets the tone for the album. It’s followed by “Love Is to Die” one of the album’s singles and “Keep It Healthy” another popular song from the album. We then get to my personal favorite song “Hi” which opens with dark and ominous echoey vocals and an eerily catchy bass line, which is accompanied later by a sick drum beat that kicks in and gives the song a catchy R&Besque rhythm. “Biggy” is apparently one of the band’s favorites as stated in their interview with Oyster Mag; its dark synth rhythms combined with a killer drum beat makes you want to move throughout and of course it includes amazing vocals that now you’ve come to expect. “Teese” is a mellower tracker with a very slow and cool jazzy drum beat and catchy hook and then the band picks it back up with “Disco/Very” a much more energetic track with a cool echoey guitar riff. From there the album continues on a mellower note once more before finishing off with “Drive” and “Son” both of which are awesome.

Along with Alcest’s “Shelter” it’s my favorite album of the year thus far and I can’t wait to see the band live at Webster Hall in New York this March. Check out Warpaint’s Soundcloud as well as their website WarpaintWarpaint.com. You can also buy their newest album on iTunes.

The band is currently touring in Australia before they move on to Asia then Europe but they’ll be hitting the US shortly afterward where they’ll play from March 21 until April 20th when they wrap up at Coachella.

Hi – Warpaint

Biggy – Warpaint

Love Is To Die – Warpaint

Read more about Warpaint here:

http://oystermag.com/interview-warpaint (Oyster Mag)

http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/01/album-review-warpaint-warpaint/ (Consequence of Sound)

@EEMalyshev