Swedish musicians have been hot for years now (QRO’s Swedish Sensations), and everyone’s all a-flutter about airy, electronic beauty these days, so when you get some airy, electronic beauty out of Sweden, you’ve got the makings of buzz. Stockholm duo I Break Horses have buzz in spades, having in their short time already crossed the North Sea for the U.K. (QRO photos of first U.K. tour) and now are on tour with couldn’t-be-any-hotter-at-the-moment M83 (QRO live review). So it’s the perfect time for a U.S. deluxe edition release of their debut Hearts, which is some nice airy, electronic beauty, if hardly revelatory (especially these days).
From the brightening opener "Winter Beats" to big atmosphere finish "No Way Outro", Fredrik Balck and Maria Lindén use their synthesizers well. There is some variety on Hearts (not counting the only-added-to-justify-calling-it-‘deluxe’ remixes at the end), including more fuzz to the title track, an eighties feel to "Wired", and a slow down to "I Kill Your Love, Baby!". But after the record reaches its emotional height with middle piece "Pulse", which puts a loss behind the sound, one feels a bit aired out during the simplistic "Cancer" and "Load Your Eyes" (though "Empty Bottles" does have an enchanting way about it).
No brand-new buzz-band is really worthy of all the attention, I Break Horses included. And the duo is both lucky and unlucky to be coming up when their airy, electronic beauty is so prevalent in indie – lucky because they’ll get more attention, but unlucky because they have more competition. Still, Hearts is a nice introduction.
MP3 Stream: "Pulse"
