From May:
It's some statement to start your album with a nine minute track. It says something about your degree of confidence and faith in your abilities as an artist that you can be willing to do that and trust your audience to stay with you.
In the case of Turn, the opening track of Swedish duo I Break Horses' latest album Warnings, it's faith entirely well placed. Its nine minutes goes past in the merest blink of an eye, the track floats inexorably with quite beautiful grace and purpose, like one of your very favourite Cocteau Twins or This Mortal Coil tracks with the subtle but important difference of having an eye on the mainstream.
So where does Warnings go from here? Into a fairly sublime dream state is where, and one it maintains for the rest of its playing span. I think the Cocteau Twins and 4AD comparisons are apt ones but there's also a definite commercial sheen on show here, redolent occasionally of AOR hit singles of the Eighties, not something that generally appeals to me though it certainly does here.
It's a record I was somewhat transfixed by on first listening. Sat in my dressing gown past midday with headphones on and thinking it was time to get dressed and set about the day in earnest even though it was a Saturday during lockdown and I had nothing that absolutely had to be done. It was a case of just one more, just one more, like the very best binge television.
Because this is an album that should certainly be devoured at one sitting if you can. It's certainly designed as a piece. An utterly gorgeous record in every sense of the word and one that seems destined to rank among my very favourites when it comes to listing the best records I've heard come November and December.
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