Breichiau Hir waste no time getting to the point. On an insistent beat and an opening scream of “OKAY,” the band jump right into insistent beats, mad guitars, and shouted verses on “Penblwydd Hapus Iawn.” Punctuating each stanza with staccato thrashes on the guitar and bass strings (complete with all of the distorted squeaks you could ask for—a complement and a gem of a sound in this world of overproduced pop music) is a great touch. It adds to the mayhem and creates a stop-start feel.
This band always bring strong vocal melodies, though on “Penblwydd Hapus Iawn” it’s the verses that run wild, while the chorus is more subdued. It’s the gentler chorus that hints at what’s to come at the halfway mark—see, where their last appearance on Ball of Wax dove into harder territory, the change here goes for more of a mellow break, though you wouldn’t know it from the drums. While the percussion plays with the beat (another of the band’s motifs), everything else fades except for the bass, which buzzes out the roots of the progression. Guitars return one by one as the vocals return to calmly narrate and things steadily pick up until a morphed instrumental version of the opening progression brings everything to a close and the listener can breathe again.