News Can The Horrors Pull Off Yet Another Transformation?

It would be pretty easy to get the wrong impression of the Horrors. If three musical test subjects were asked to each listen to a different one of their albums in isolation, one would come out pant-shittingly scared, another awashed with lo-fi angst and the last swelling with stadium euphoria.

The scientific conclusions would all be pretty similar though. Whatever their sound, The Horrors always make an impact. It’s not really the kind of music that can be listened to half-heartedly, or for the same reason alone at night. Like a rather sadistic octopus, it grabs you by the heartstrings with every tentacle of its sound and tugs this way and that, reeling you in.

Most impressive is their ability to seamlessly blend art and rock. It’s never pretentious or contrived; you’re not going to suddenly get twenty-three minutes of pure white noise or chopped and screwed moos of Tanzanian grass-fed cows. Instead, it’s oozing with clever musical nuances. And this – combined with a slightly eerie and uneasy atmosphere– more often than not leads to something pretty damn special.

It all started with 2007’s ‘Strange House’, an explosion of goth rock wig-outs that were rawer than a Gwyneth Paltrow diet. It was seriously intense; ‘Draw Japan’ fizzles and sizzles with Faris Badwan’s searing vocals, ‘Death At The Chapel’ lives up to its dooming name and ‘A Train Roars’ is less Thomas The Tank Engine and more the Hannibal Lecter Express. It wasn’t just thrashing-noise for the sake of it, though. It was an electrically-infused debut ushering in anger, with all the barrels of energy a debut needs to get noticed.



Noticed, they were. Hell, they even appeared in an episode of The Mighty Boosh as indie band ‘The Black Tubes’, who have a strict skinny-legs only policy and end up employing an alcoholic crab named Sammy as their frontman. If that isn’t art-rock decadence, God knows what the hell is.

But just as quickly as they’d made their goth-rock mark, they erased it, scrunched-it up, nonchalantly chucked it in the bin; and started afresh. The release of the first single from 2009’s ‘Primary Colour’s was a dizzyingly-hard smack round the gob and remarkably different from anything they’d done before. ‘Sea Within A Sea’ was the name. The game? It was a marathon of a track. Not only that, but it didn’t even carry a chorus, or a refrain, or a bridge or anything of such conventional stature. And most importantly, it was a complete U-Turn in sound; it replaced seething anger with uneasy angst, and was laced with jittery synths. Gone was the incessant screaming, the cutting guitar and the snappy running times.



They’d hammered a nail right through the head of the second-album poltergeist, and in its process trickled into the mainstream. They got into the charts and were even nominated for the Mercury Prize; though disappointedly weren’t victorious.

But – being The Horrors – this sound didn’t last too long. They somehow evolved once again; the first unveiling of the new style being their single ‘Still Life’, a catalyst for sore throats and beer-soaked soul-seeking. They drew upon the emotion of their first album and then mixed it with the larger scale of their second, to create something stadium-sized and – for the first time – downright euphoric. ‘Skying’ was massive in every sense. The name, the sales (silver certified), the songs. Every single track on the album is unashamedly anthemic, glossed with a confidence and an upbeat atmosphere that hadn’t been seen previously.

Which takes us to the present. Later this year, The Horrors are set to release their fourth album; and from the snippets of information already released, it’s sounding like their chameleon heart hasn’t been punctured. Speaking to NME earlier this year, bassist (and rather bizarrely member of a Bo Diddley cover band) Rhys Webb spoke of the album moving “in a more electronic direction”, with experimentation culminating in “music you can dance to” and “that elevates”, as well as being slightly heavier than previously.

Aside from being pant-wettingly exciting, it’s also evidence of yet another transformation the band are ready to put themselves through. At the same time, it also feels a more natural one than their previous transitions. Spaced-out jams from their last record such as ‘Moving Further Away’ and ‘I Can See Through You’ have already laid the foundations for a dancier, more electronic direction. They’ve certainly got the tools under their belt, as well; the band’s Tom Furse kicked off the year with two absolute bangers, Faris Badwan featured on dance track ‘Bright’ last week and the guys certainly know how to layer instrument after instrument to create lush and rich soundscapes.

Yet - as guitarist Joshua Hayward told DIY last year – their success won’t be going to their heads, and they certainly won’t be “falling into any of the horrible stuff that tends to happen when bands get to that level.” So far then, it’s ticking a whole lot of boxes. It’s going to be another transformation, it’s going to make us throw some shapes, and it’s not going to fall victim to any big-band clichés. Sounds rather marvellous. The question – however - is whether they’ll pull it off.

Okay, there’s nothing concrete known at the moment about the new album. But based on previous material and the band’s incessant determination, an educated guess can certainly be made that it’s going to be another quality record. Plus, the band have already played new song ‘Elixir Spring’/’I See You’, and frankly it sounds bloody amazing. It’s definitely one for shape-throwers, and has the same abundance of euphoria as on ‘Skying’.



As good as ‘Skying’ is, you still feel the band haven’t had their finest hour. Every album’s been an upward progression, due to a combination of guts, balls and a burning desire to shake up their own conventions. As ‘Still Life’ – a perfect encompassment of what The Horrors stand for – preaches: “The moment that you want is coming if you give it time”. We’ve had the time. Now let’s bring on the moment.