release date: May 20, 2020
format: digital (12 x File, FLAC)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,92]
producer: Maria Lindén
label: Bella Union - nationality: Sweden
Track highlights: 1. "Turn" (4 / 5) - 2. "Silence" - 4. "I'll Be the Death of You" - 6. "The Prophet" (4,5 / 5) - 7. "Neon Lights" - 8. "I Live at Night" - 9. "Baby You Have Travelled for Miles Without Love in Your Eyes" (4 / 5) - 10. "Death Engine"
3rd studio album by I Break Horses as a follow-up to the more than six year old Chiaroscuro (Jan. 2014) is much as usual produced by the band's dynamo, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and composer Maria Lindén, and it's like the duo's two previous albums released on British label Bella Union.
Six years is a long time between releases in modern popular music culture, but it's the pace of Lindén and percussionist Fredrik Balck who seem in complete control, although part of the explanation for the long wait may have to do with Lindén's perfectionism and the fact that some recordings were lost. The album consists of 12 tracks varying from 1 to 9 minutes and with a total running time of 54 minutes.
Musically, the album lands somewhere in between the first two albums - Hearts from 2011 with its guitar-driven shoegaze and My Bloody Valentine-esque wall of sound versus the more electronic synthpop release from 2014. You'll find energetic uptempo tracks with almost inaudible guitar as background instrumentation, but otherwise it's a more strict synthpop and electropop version of dreampop guided by keyboards, synths, and drum programming, the duo presents here. Lindén is undoubtedly the duo's leading figure - in addition to her vocal contributions, she handles guitar, bass, and keyboards, while Balck, in addition to his part of co-songwriter, apparently is content to contribute as the duo's rhythmic planner.
Warnings has been released to fine reviews, and it's an album that may leave you with a feeling of something ingenious and original pointing back to the best by The Knife, but which also borrows from Cocteau Twins and Radio Dept., but cleverly avoids imitation, because it appears thoroughly new. Lindén doesn't reveal an impressive vocal as some contemporary pop artists, but on Warnings the vocal side is more of a contribution to the tone of dreampop in line with the sound of a synthesiser or the keyboards, and the rhythmic contribution of percussion and drum programming varies from trance-like monotony over more traditional simple rhythm structures to something almost dynamic organic as you would find on albums by The Creatures.
With Warnings, I Break Horses has made a minor masterpiece by balancing the positive energy of their debut with the greater rhythmic complexity of the follow-up. It's a huge musical overview with ties to various styles, which creates rare dynamics, and it's an inviting and captivating sound that deserves all the great reviews. With Warnings the duo has made a most surprising leap to the front of bus.
Highly recommended.
2020 Favourite releases: 1. Gorillaz Song Machine, Season One - Strange Timez - 2. Kesi BO4L - 3. I Break Horses Warnings
