Warnings

Warnings is a real grower; for every moment of instant gratification here, there’s another that requires more work. The more time you invest in I Break Horses’ latest work, the more you get out of it.

The album is crowned by the extraordinary, seven-minutes-plus Death Engine, where a gospel feel gives way to a lengthy, rolling, Bach-like coda. On an otherwise tonally unified album, this is where Linden's emotions are at their rawest. [Jun 2020, p.89]

Working with producer Chris Coady, I Break Horses embrace the power of slowing things down considerably. Many of the songs rarely get as speedy as a trot, and indeed, the opening track Turn, takes a good nine minutes to slowly detail a dissolving relationship. This, then, is music to get lost in, even when the content is at times worrying and dark.

‘Warnings’ is a brooding, beautiful contemplation of life’s flaws. With this album, Lindén and Balck have strengthened their mastery of atmospheric music.

Lindén had some false starts in trying to realize her true vision with Warnings, and it shows—the effort she went through to craft a sound this painstakingly meticulous requires time and patience. And though we know how far she and Balck can push themselves, we're still not quite sure who exactly they want to be.

Hypnotic stuff. [Summer 2020, p.100]

Album stand out "Death Engine" seems to be the perfect balance of all the elements at play – it’s momentous but it stands still, it’s modern but it’s also so rose-tinted, it’s where hard percussion meets yearning keys and where elation greets loss. Sadly the album does stumble a little at the last hurdle, as "Depression Tourist" adds an unnecessarily vocoder-happy outing to the mix, but thankfully it does not fall or overshadow this otherwise stunning return.

The record is most effective when Lindén sounds more animated, as on I’ll Be the Death of You and the nimble, propulsive, Kraftwerk-influenced Neon Lights. Unfortunately these moments are overshadowed by lengthier excursions that give longueurs a bad name.

The instrumental interludes full of hypnotic loops and Mellotrons are intriguing enough, but the meat lies in the lushly layered art-pop songs. [Jun 2020, p.30]