Warpaint: The Fool - review

There is a disconcerting moment in Warpaint's debut album when the LA-based quartet might be addressing their listeners directly. "Now I've got you in the undertow," singer-guitarists Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman chime, in voices sweet and lethally seductive. The line feels apposite because Warpaint make music to submerge yourself in, limpid on the surface, eddying beneath. Ripples of guitar rise above and sink beneath bold waves of bass, while drum lines surge hither and thither, pushing the songs to change their course. There is something subtly contrary about this band: their most enigmatic song bears the name Warpaint, while their least-composed song – which opens in a fury of shouted vocals and uncoils in a meandering jam of slowly detuned guitars – is called Composure. But if this slipperiness makes them intriguing, it's the consistent sensuality of Warpaint's sound that makes them mesmerise.