Breton: War Room Stories

What was striking about Breton's debut, Other People's Problems (2012), was the collective's audacious musical canvas: a little art-rock here, a little tropical pop there, and a thoroughly compelling attitude throughout. It marked Breton as a band keen to accentuate their complexities. Here, on an album recorded in Berlin's Funkhaus studio (which once housed East Germany's public radio station), the width and depth of their sound is as pronounced as last time. The one big difference seems to be that the songs are much sturdier, perhaps as a result of the band learning about their craft in the live shows between releases. Get Well Soon, Envy and S Four are vibrant and cocksure songs that shimmy and shake along on a procession of strings, bleeps, steel drum washes and melancholic pop ruminations. A band getting weirder and better with time. bretonlabs.com
Download: Get Well Soon, Envy