Ladyhawk, "Shots"

On Ladyhawk's second album, their spirited rock songs are decent but fairly ordinary. They bring plenty of angst and passion to the material but don't do enough to develop these impulses. Too frequently their arrangements play it safe, as if they're trying to refine the same song over and over rather than challenging themselves to break new ground.

 

Jagjaguwar

Song titles like "Fear," "Corpse Paint," "Faces of Death," and "Ghost Blues" point to a preoccupation with death and darkness, expressed with a profound weariness. This is coupled with a sense of angry yearning that erupts at climactic moments throughout the album, but the same approach song after song eventually devalues the cathartic value and lessens the effectiveness. Not helping matters is that each song follows this same formula, starting with slow and sparse sections that erupt in impassioned outbursts.

Another problem is that the band is going for an epic feel but doesn't always have enough to say to make it work. "Fear" is a good song, but they don't capitalize on its strengths. Rather than solidifying the hooks, they draw it out by expanding the slower sections of lesser interest. Likewise, "Ghost Blues" builds to a powerful, screaming finale. Instead of concluding after its peak, however, they drag it out for almost four more minutes, which only detracts from its overall effect when the music peters out rather than ends with a roar.

Some of the better songs are "I Don't Always Know What You're Saying," "S.T.H.D.," and "Corpse Paint." Too bad, then, that so many of the others come across as imitative filler, making Shots a solid but unexceptional effort.