News Albums Of 2007: #9 Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin

was Band Of Horses’ second full-length album. It was their first since the departure of founding member Mat Brooke, since relocating back to South Carolina from Seattle, and is, roughly speaking, more direct than debut ‘Everything All The Time’, released in March 2006, and more influenced by Americana, more ‘country’, if that weren’t the sort of word which means Garth Brooks’ beard, Dolly Parton’s kitsch or a world to where Ronan Keating escapes from Louis Walsh.

While track ‘Is There A Ghost’ features on our track countdown, we thought it only fair to include the record as a whole. It’s not quite as epic as its predecessor, not as ornate. It’s less loud. It’s a bit like comparing a pocket dictionary to a massive edition found only in libraries; they both say the same, the former just gets there more quickly.