Why Horses? turn birthday blues into liberating art rock with “Yr Big Day”

Why Horses? has a way of putting you into a cold war with yourself, and then daring to swoop in and play the diplomat. Their 2025 debut EP, Yeah, Hi?, has the wispy cerebralism and restrained physicality to conjure the frustration of attempting to float outside of your body, and only being reminded of your own boney bridles in the process. Even lyrically, it concerns itself both with sticks and stones (“I’ve got a fever / I’m burning so hot”), and the words that, unfortunately, very much hurt them, (“I never knew / Your words could cut / And now we’re stuck”). Still, it carries its burdens throughout with more of a stoic integrity than Why Horses? ever fully gives themselves credit for. In doing so, it encourages the listener to set themselves free from their own follies and internal struggles in its honest steeling against absurdity. Built around the resolution that, while life is rarely ever just as you’d like it to be, we still have the choice to enjoy it. It's a theme which finds a fitting crux in crying on one’s birthday. “Yr Big Day” finds the band leaning into their capacity to sit with paradox more directly than perhaps ever before. Les Davies, on bass and backing vocals, s...