Learn from my mistakes, people, like this one I keep making over and over again. I have kind of a hard and fast rule to never buy an album until it’s at least five years old; albums need to mature like good whiskey in order for you know if they’re in for the long run.---

Every once in a while I break my own rule after hearing an entire album on a radio show or borrowed from a friend.

This happened to me when I bought the first album by the Band of Horses. Everything All the Time was not only a Masterpiece, with songs like “Part One,” “The Funeral,” and “The Great Salt Lake;” it also helped me through some very difficult months. I love the hell out of the album. It may have really, literally, saved my life.

So, the second album comes out, Cease to Begin, and the third album, Infinite Arms, comes out not long after that. I read allmusic.com (a great source all in all), and I discovered they put their check mark first on the second album and then the third album, meaning that album's the band’s best.

I read Rolling Stone magazine rants all about the second and third Band of Horses albums, that they’re oh-so-superior albums to the first.

So, I purchased the second and third Band of Horses albums, just waiting to experience a listening nirvana. Instead, I ended up thinking, what’s this shit supposed to be/mean?

Guess what kids? It wasn’t there. Neither the second, nor third, album were worthy of holding the first album’s jock-strap. I sold them, both for a loss; the first day I owned them.

Learn from my mistakes, kids: Don’t ever buy music you’re not sure what it really sounds like. And long live great albums like Everything All the Time—an absolute Masterpiece.