The Fool

by 
AlbumOct 25 / 20109 songs, 47m 17s
Dream Pop Neo-Psychedelia
Popular Highly Rated

Warpaint — contrary to what the name conjures — is a four-piece all- female band based in L.A., and *The Fool* is their debut full-length, following a 2009 EP titled *Exquisite Corpse*. Staying the course with their goth-tinged psychedelic folk, *The Fool* is a beautiful tapestry of dusky, hazy tunes that deliver on mood rather than real hooks. Opening track “Set Your Arms Down” may be an anti-war screed, or a narcoticized plea to a feuding lover, but either way it envelops the listener like smoke, difficult to nail down when the track ends. Full of solemn, effects-heavy bass lines, wispy, reverb-wrapped vocals and languid, sleepy rhythms, *The Fool* captures the mood of several genres in one swoop, including genteel singer-songwriter ambience (“Baby,” “Shadows”), which shows a fearless skill for cross-pollinating. Lovely.

7.2 / 10

L.A. art-rock quartet's debut LP is a nine-song seance of an album that's as subtle as it is disquieting.

B

Despite all evidence to the contrary over the past 30 years, post-punk doesn’t have to be built out of cold, sharp angles. The Fool, the full-length debut by Los Angeles’ Warpaint, coasts instead on a humid, hazy, oozing pulse that’s less ice age and more malarial swamp. With a torpid and feverish dreaminess, the…

6 / 10

8.0 / 10

For a band who has just released their first record, Warpaint sound absolutely exhausted. “I’m afraid, I’m drunk and I’m…

Check out our album review of Artist's The Fool on Rolling Stone.com.

On The Fool, Warpaint sound surprisingly delicate, given their combative name.

Unashamedly backwards-gazing and almost achingly now...Although hailing from the sunny shores of California, Warpaint’s perpetually cloudy music evokes the monochrome dourness of a permanently rain-splattered industrial estate somewhere in Northern England circa 1980.

7 / 10

Six years of upheavals precede this debut album, finding the band back to being exclusively female.

10 / 10

7 / 10

Run for the hills! They're coming! Forget the cat, the car and the kids just bloody run! Leggit! Save yourself! Get off the grid! Change your name to...

<strong>Maddy Costa</strong> is mesmerised by the sensuality of Warpaint's debut album

90 %

86 %

4.0 / 5

Warpaint - The Fool review: Shimmering psychedelic post-punk to get lost into.