I Break Horses — Warnings — Album Review
Indie Rock | Cosmic Rock | Electronic Rock
Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Music
May has inevitably become a month where new releases I’ve personally been anticipating, have been rather scarce. However, this is where I discovered the saving grace that is the new releases section of Album Of The Year, which I highly recommend browsing though if you don’t want to miss another release ever again.
It is thanks to this platform too, that in my desperate search for new music, I stumbled across I Break Horses, and their third and newest album, Warnings.
I Break Horses are said to be a Swedish indie rock band made up of synth musician Maria Lindén and guitarist Fredrik Balck. Although, I was surprised to have seen the band be described as such, as the impression I got from my introductory album to this band, was one that felt more reminiscent of synth pop. The impression I got from the band was that they felt musically similar to the likes of Beach House, and could easily be compared to such an artist.
But comparisons aside, what’s most important is that Warnings is jam-packed with cosmic atmosphere. Said atmosphere was pretty much what had me invested in this album in the first place, and I found myself easily enjoying much of the quirky and colourful productions that this album had to offer.
But after delving into this album fully, I recognised a wonderful balance of colourful and dark undertones, and the latter is mostly made apparent by the contextual aspects of Warnings, along with the album cover.
While the introductory segment of this album was enjoyable enough, it was with the fourth track “I’ll Be the Death Of You” was where Warnings really took a turn for the better in my opinion, and the cosmic electro indie-rock sound is projected in all of its bright and colourful glory.
Thankfully, the enjoyment didn’t stop with that track either, and there were plenty more tracks that carried a similar level of bright and dynamic energy, or were highly enjoyable in some other way.
The stylistic theme of this album all feels incredibly cohesive, and there isn’t really a single track on this thing that feels particularly out of place. This was refreshing for me to listen to, given that I’ve been listening to a tonne of versatile projects of late. All in all, the tracks on this album just correlate with one-another really nicely.
I thought I’d take it upon myself to compare the likes of Warnings with some previous I Break Horses projects (despite me being completely new to this artist), and my general consensus is that it feels like a very good continuation of their previous album, 2014’s Chiaroscuro’s stylistic layout. They haven’t necessarily done much to alter their style in the 6 years between both projects, but honestly if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The most glaring (but still minor) criticism I have towards the album is the slight overabundance of interlude-type tracks, as well as how insignificant each of them felt. They’re sort of what you’d expect an ambient indie interlude to sound like; ambient but unmemorable transitional noise that doesn’t really do much at all to push the narrative of the album forward. But thankfully, these uninteresting melodies seem to stay in the realm of interludes.
All in all, Warnings proved to be quite the enjoyable and indulgent experience, and I would definitely go ahead and say that this album is best enjoyed if one listens to it from start to finish.
Favourite Tracks: I’ll Be The Death Of You | The Prophet | Neon Lights
Least Favourite Track: d e n l i l l a p å s s e a v l y c k a
Bella Union
