I don’t speak Welsh (sad, considering my surname), but listening to Breichiau Hir makes me wish I did. As far as I can understand from Google Translate—and I’m embarrassed even to admit that I resorted to that—the title of this track means, roughly, “Portrait of a Man Eating Himself.” Rarely has a title evoked such colorful imagery and opened up more the possibilities as to what the song may actually be about.
My need to understand lyrics is often subdued by the actual sound of a song and that’s exactly what happens with “Portread O Ddyn Yn Bwyta Ei Hun”—the whole thing threatens to explode from the start, the first portion of the central riff doled out several times before giving way to the delicious bass and slightly-more-than-restrained vocals. One rhythm guitar hangs in the back for a stanza or two, its brother-in-arms jumping in to help build momentum and a third adding bit of whine, all of which builds to a rousing stop-time chorus wherein everything goes a bit crazy.
If Breichiau Hir simply repeated this pattern, the song would be good enough, but no—following the second run-through, the band slips into post-rock/post-hardcore territory with a drum-and-bass bit that defies the song’s meter until the guitars return to reclaim it, reinforce it, and finally pummel it into submission, allowing the track to outro on the same central riff. I still don’t know what’s being said lyrically, but I do know that I’m going to be spending some time researching this band’s back catalogue.
Ball of Wax 54