First, let's get the inevitable comparison out of the way: Ben Bridwell's voice does sound a lot like Jim James of My Morning Jacket. His vocal range is remarkably similar to both James and The Shins' James Mercer now that I think of it. He also shares James' twangy and echoey delivery. So, yes, there it is. Sip that fact in, swish it around in your mouth a little, close your eyes if you have to to more fully appreciate the similarities, then grab the spit bucket and get it out of your system.

      Band of Horses' newest album, Everything All the Time, is like a walk through a special exhibition gallery at a small town's art museum. The room is small. The lighting could be slightly better. You just know the humidity level's not where it should be to best preserve the paintings. And yet there they are: each song a well framed, carefully composed canvas complete unto itself. The pictures are small, double-matted and framed in demure black-metal. Nothing fancy here. You walk in, you respectfully gaze at each work and then you move on. But you might come back later, you just won't know exactly why.

      I've been listening to Everything All the Time off and on for about a month now, and I can say this: I like it better, apparently, than I realize. I certainly keep returning to it often enough. There's more exciting, challenging, explosive music out there, to be sure, but there is something about Band of Horses' sound that is at once reliably calming and somehow energizing. Their songs could fill a stadium, yet there's an intimate quality to their music, an endearing simplicity to the songs' structures.

      The album has quirky moments that defy easy categorization. The way Bridwell enunciates the word "dear" in "Part One" so that it's at least three syllables. The way his voices squeezes out the gorgeous, grief-stricken chorus in "The Funeral." The way he whoops like a self-conscious cowboy wannabe at the beginning of "Weed Party." Cymbals gently swell throughout entire songs, giving melodies an almost ethereal webbing. The guitars jangle and shimmer hypnotically through each song, and you walk through them as if through a curtain of beads leading to the back section of a tattoo parlor.

      There's something at once so unassuming and yet so tidily arranged to Band of Horses' sound that you'd be forgiven for dismissing them after a listen or two. Just don't be surprised if, after you think you've got them pegged, something draws you back in for just one more listen. And one more after that.

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