Guitarist/vocalist Ben Bridwell and bassist Mat Brooke froemd Band of Horses in 2004 after the dissolution of their nearly 10-year run in northwest melancholic darlings Carissa's Weird. Carissea's Wierd trafficked in sadly beautiful orchestral pop, whose songs told unflinching stories of heartbreak and loss, leavened with defeatist humor. Band of Horses rises from those ashes. Buoyed by Bridwell's warm, reverb-heavy vocals, the groups woodsy, dreamy songs ooze with amorphous tension, longing and hope. Both raggedly epic and delicately pensive, this isan album painted gorgeously in fragile highs and lows.