aaamusic | On 22, Aug 2011

It’s hard to make shoegaze music, bloody hard, especially when the genre has reached peaks of popularity that we wouldn’t be impressed to see sonic distortions finally reach the mainstream, and obviously, we pray this won’t ever happen.

Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck know this perfectly and try their best, revisiting a genre through sounds that relate more to the latest diversions of the genre rather than its origins. Thus, if you’re looking for the usual suspects a la MBV and Jesus and Mary Chain you’ll be confused and delighted at the same time. In fact, I Break Horses seem to absorb rather the lesson coming from synth-gazers such as Maps and M83, with a strong influence from the early years of OMD.

We feel for I Break Horses, because they chose a path that will fill pages of enthusiastic reviews and at the same time will leave empty pockets, in so much as you’d be forced to sell your own guitar if you were there. This is maybe the reason why Hearts is an atypical album, where atmospheres rely much more on synths and electronics rather than guitars.

This is the main risk run by Maria and Fredrick; will the Swedish duo convince a fundamentalist fan-base with their synth=driven sound? Or maybe here we are asking the wrong question, and we should simply ask themselves: is Hearts a great album? Well, the answer is yes, and the reason lies in the Sigur Ros-like crescendos of No Way Outro; in Pulse, where LSD and the search for God cover Cocteau Twins with their heartbreaking melodies; in the Radio Dept.ian echoes of Hearts, and in all the other nuances of make this album special. Hopefully, this jewel won’t pass unobserved.

 

Author: Lorenzo Coretti