Fresh off the back of having charmed a small cluster of music journalists with their debut EP, Songs in the Key of O, For Breakfast have made a compelling return with the fascinatingly knotty ‘Heavy Horse Museum’. Hell-bent on having more twists and turns than a Möbius loop, the London septet channel Unwound as much as they do Henry Cow to create a riveting epic that works its way through sections where manic woodwinds, overdriven bass breakdowns and hushed vocals each take centre stage.
As cumbersome as all the above may sound, For Breakfast completely own the chaos and manage to restrain themselves from allowing things to feel completely overbearing. Taking things from where the debut record left off a couple of years ago, the band still manage to encompass diverse influences from each of its seven members with apparent ease. With all this in mind, the follow up EP arriving later this year, Trapped in the Big Room, should present an equally satisfying genre broth.
Despite being recorded in a Cold War airbase, the sound that For Breakfast conjure is far from the austere image that location presents. There’s a sinister edge to the track that had briefly shone through on previous tracks such as ‘Machine’, though on this outing it feels as though there is a conscious effort to reach for a darker tone overall, befitting of the disjointed and patched together lyrics of vocalist Maya Harrison. As the undulations of the track eventually come full circle, the listener is likely to feel some sense of exhaustion and confusion as to what just hit them, but the one thing you can be assured of is you’ll want to take the ride over and over again.
Words: Reuben Cross // Photo: Simon Thompson
‘Heavy Horse Museum’ is out now via Glasshouse Records, taken from the forthcoming EP ‘Trapped in the Big Room’, out May 20th. Pre-order the EP via Bandcamp.