One of the problems in using itunes to listen to music (and having a slightly dodgy memory) is that I often find it difficult to place songs to albums. Nowhere is that better exemplified than with Band of Horses, for debut Everything All the Time and follow-up Cease to Begin are pretty interchangeable. This is no bad thing. Simply providing more of the same is great when it produces two terrific albums like those, it’s only when the sideways step becomes dull that there’s a problem. Enter Infinite Arms.
This, it must be stated explicitly, is a good album. Opener ‘Factory’ sets the marker for what is to follow and would have happily sat onto either of the existing albums. All the hallmarks of the sound remain, the lush vocals and the wistful guitar sounds, but the track isn’t one that particularly stands out. Neither is the next, or the next, and indeed the whole of what might be considered Side One passes pleasantly enough but without much event.
On Side Two we get a change of pace and more promise. ‘Evening Kitchen’ takes the simplest of guitar lines and carves out something melancholically beautiful. A lament to missed opportunities, lines like ‘I'd go tonight but I know you'll be there too’ give a reflective and regretful air. Whereas the lifting moment in the band’s songs tends to come from big drumbeats and layers of sound, the same effect is created on the chorus here with just two sets of vocals. There’s more to get behind on tracks like ‘Dilly’ and ‘NW Apt.’ The former feels almost like a laid-back Strokes record and has a pop charm whilst the latter has an urgency absent from the rest of the record and steps a little further outwith the the usual formula.
In all Infinite Arms is something of a missed opportunity. It’s extremely difficult to dislike a band and an album so generally worthwhile and amiable but the high points and standout tracks are sorely missed.
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