release date: Jan. 21, 2014
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Maria Lindén
label: Bella Union - nationality: Sweden
2nd studio album by Swedish duo I Break Horses following the 2011 debut album Hearts consists of 9 cuts with a total running length of just under 46 minutes.
Maria Lindén is the band's multi-instrumentalist, who has also composed the music, while the lyrics have been created in collaboration with percussionist Fredrik Balck.
Chiaroscuro is a markedly different from Hearts, which largely departed from a familiar scene crowded by bands such as My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Mary Chain, and which was an album you would be tempted to label as shoegaze revival. Compared to that, this new album sounds as the music from a completely different artist. Here, the duo steps into the keyboard universe of electropop filled with keyboards, synthesizers, sequencers, drum programming, and various software programs as elementary instruments. In this way, the guitar has stepped much into the background or is completely out of a soundscape, which is far from a copy, but in terms of style nevertheless builds on music that reminds of The Knife, Crystal Castles, Cocteau Twins, and Beach House (another Bella Union band). If you enjoyed the band's grinding 90s sound, you will probably be disappointed or think that it's completely different people behind the music here, but just as the debut was Lindén and Balck, Chiaroscuro is made by the same duo, and it also proves how inspiration is a thing you collect from various places.
It's both a happy-go-lucky pop atmosphere, certified dance beats, and gloomy timbres without losing a sense of coherence. It's a fine and artistically challenging album that may not be called the best of the year, but Chiaroscuro garnered international praise and is quite an exciting and original follow-up to Hearts.
