If there’s one criticism that Warpaint have had trouble shaking off, it’s that they too often favour atmosphere, mood and a soporific groove over songwriting.
Few doubt the spectral quality of Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman's interlocking guitars, or the cyclical rhythms conjured by bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg and in-demand drummer Stella Mozgawa, but equally the LA band's first two albums had a frustrating tendency to melt into the ether once they had stopped playing. Heads Up sounds like a concerted effort to rectify that.
To that end, New Song was an instructive choice for the first single. By a distance Warpaint's biggest pop move yet, it wastes little time getting to the chorus, all the while riding on a robust disco-pop beat, those normally chiming guitars relegated to rhythm and textural duties.
Lyrically, too, this is Warpaint at their most direct, comparing a new love to – yes – the joy of hearing a new favourite song, and blurring the lines between infatuation and lust: “Dance into me all night long,” as the middle eight has it. It’s a surprising new look for the band, and a largely successful one.
So Good is another highlight cut from similar cloth, and changes are afoot elsewhere, too. Hip-hop has been cited as a major influence on the record, and this is most explicit on Dre, which layers the quartet's airy vocals (in harmony as usual) over some atmospheric boom-bap.
It's not exactly The Next Episode, but it's another welcome change of tack. Likewise the sinister, minimal By Your Side and the dreamy Don't Wanna are each built on depth-charge basslines, brittle beats and sultry vocals.
But if anything the band hasn't gone far enough. For every track that surprises, there is another that fits all too neatly into the old, sleepily stylish formula. And once again, genuinely memorable songs are few and far between. Warpaint continue to be a classy proposition with serious chops, but Heads Up finds them caught between where they've been and where they're going.
