The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Warpaint

[#] Exquisite Corpse (2008)

The pieces just don't quite come together.

Reviewed February 2, 2026

Like a movie you have to watch a few times to catch all its little details, Warpaint's debut album Exquisite Corpse is probably what people are referring to when they talk about EPs being frustrating. There's good tunes here and a lot of range in their sonic humidifier clouds of twinkly gentle passages and surfy stomping. They're augmented even by not just one, but two different Chili Peppers guitarists. This should've been a knockout, and I can't tell if it's that it's too slight or that one or two duds is simply too many for such a short album that it isn't.

Opener "Stars" is Warpaint's sound and the required patience on full display. You get these warm, wandering guitar strums and Theresa Wayman's lovely, dreamy whispers as the song takes two entire minutes to build to the full band entrance. It also works, whereas the musical mire of "Burgundy" very much doesn't. For all its strengths, like the moving, detached vocals and fingerpicked guitars of "Billie Holiday" or "Elephants" and "Krimson" injecting some much needed hooks and gasoline into the proceedings, it just doesn't feel like you get a complete whole with Exquisite Corpse at the end of the day.

Essential:	"Stars", "Elephants", "Billie Holiday"
Quintessential:	"Krimson"
Non-Essential:	"Burgundy"
Rating: