In a music landscape often dominated by overproduction and algorithm-chasing hooks, Beautiful Terrier, the third album from Scottish bedroom-prog auteur Burnt Log, arrives as a beautifully warped and deeply personal artefact. Released under the moniker of Andy Smith, Burnt Log’s music is equal parts cinematic, jaggedly poetic, and stubbornly homegrown. With this new ten-track odyssey, Smith cements his place as a low-key pioneer of what could only be described as “cinematic bedroom indie prog”, a genre he may have coined, but embodies.
Burnt Log’s musical journey is as unglamorous as it is inspiring. Based in Scotland and working in self-imposed exile from the polished corridors of the mainstream, Smith began releasing music during the pandemic-era creative surge, leaning into lo-fi aesthetics not from trend-chasing but necessity. His first two albums (Oblong Chimes for Strangers and Time Is A Heron Waiting For Prey) hinted at a creative volcano quietly rumbling under the surface. Beautiful Terrier is the eruption, not explosive, but slow-burning, lava-like, creeping into the psyche with every listen.
The album opens with the haunting epic “School”, a visceral dive into the ’80s high school experience. It’s a nine-minute memory loop of chalk dust, social cruelty, and youthful bewilderment. With layered synths and a slow-build structure that morphs like a haunted Genesis B-side, it’s nostalgic and quietly horrifying. Smith’s knack for anchoring big emotions in small, vivid details makes it an uncomfortable yet magnetic listen — the kind of song that reveals more with every re-entry.
From there, the album doesn’t loosen its grip. “Ice Cream” might sound whimsical, but it’s a deceptively melancholic track, an existential reflection hiding beneath a summery guitar jangle. “Chimpanzees” offers one of the record’s strangest turns, part David Attenborough, part Talking Heads, using the metaphor of primates to explore human tribalism and modern disconnection. The song’s angular riffing and rhythmic chaos somehow resolve into something oddly catchy, proving Smith can navigate the complex without ever sounding indulgent.
At the core of Beautiful Terrier are two tentpole tracks that define its emotional arc. The title track, “Beautiful Terrier”, was inspired by the documentary Navalny and especially by the resolve of Navalny’s widow, Yuli. Smith turns this into a brooding, multi-part tribute to defiance in the face of despair, layering melancholy piano motifs with rising waves of synth and ambient noise. It’s cinematic in the truest sense, not background music, but a movie playing in your mind’s eye.
Elsewhere, “The Car Park” is like a lost scene from a Ken Loach film — bleak, domestic, utterly grounded. “Sleeping” and “Sticks” contrast: the former is a lullaby for the exhausted and emotionally wrecked, the latter is a twitchy, post-punk meditation on fragility and confrontation. The brief and jagged “Sharks” almost acts as a palate cleanser before the closer, “Take a Bow,” which feels like a curtain call for the album and the emotional landscape it traverses — tired, thankful, and slightly bitter.
What makes Beautiful Terrier more than just an oddball indie gem is its cohesion. Every track belongs here. The sequencing feels deliberate, like a mixtape made for a friend who’s been struggling. Despite the humble recording conditions, the album sounds surprisingly lush thanks to careful mixing and mastering, with each instrument given space to breathe. The two professionally made music videos by Scottish filmmaker Kris Boyle offer a visual dimension to Smith’s sprawling internal cinema, adding new context without being too literal.
Beautiful Terrier is one of those rare DIY releases that feels timeless and utterly now. It’s a record about dread — global, personal, inherited — but also about the small triumphs of continuing to make art in the face of it. Full of weird hooks, wild turns, and heart-in-mouth moments, Burnt Log has built a strange, beautiful world. Enter it slowly, and you might not want to leave.
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