Cover illustration from The Hotspur comic book issue #29, March 17, 1934
The Fool is not a new album, really - it was one of the big debut records of last year, a compelling and dreamy slice of LA shoegaze rock from a talented new all-female band. At the time, though, I took a pass on The Fool after giving it a trial listen - it just seemed a little on the slight side, particularly as I'd already been exposed to some early Warpaint tracks which were absent and would have filled out the album's nine-song track list nicely. I'm glad I waited, though, because the new Deluxe Edition of The Fool includes those tracks (the entire Exquisite Corpse EP, in fact) on a second disc.
While the members of Warpaint may refer to the Exquisite Corpse EP as The Fool's little sister, I think that it shows off some of the band's virtues better than the album does. Produced by John Frusciante, it demonstrates the band's ability to do the "pop" part of dream-pop ("Elephants") and the "dream" part ("Billie Holiday"). But while Exquisite Corpse shows Warpaint's versatility, The Fool demonstrates the band's depth. It's a non-stop swirl of creamy guitar sounds layered on top of each other and combined with woozy vocal hooks - it starts out a little slow, but by the time you get to "Undertow" and "Bees", it's hard not to give yourself up to the sound world these ladies have created. A couple of the tracks drag on longer than they need to (the Deluxe edition helpfully includes more concise edits of both "Undertow" and "Billie Holiday"), but the sheer amount of first-rate art rock makes this first-anniversary-ish reissue a tempting introduction to a very promising band.
"Bees" by Warpaint
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