Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

The Horrors

Now how can I put this?
This is tricky.
The Horrors are a good band - I hope were all agreed.
"Primary Colours" their second offering is quality item, yes? OK.
Now that said.

The Horrors performance at Lievin wasn't awful but it was pretty bad, but more than that, it was extremely strange and totally at odds with how they were the last time I saw them play live. Was it the venue, I can't think why it should have been they've done largesque before. Had they been led there at gun point? It looked like it. They were frozen, inward, self contained, insular, almost catatonically so, and they looked so uncomfortable crammed into the space in front of the Muse megalithic stage show. Were they scared of falling off their perch or had the downers arrived unexpectedly early? I don't know what was going on and most of the punters had no idea either, the first couple of tracks were greeted with polite bemused applause. It wasn't until The Horrors played "Who Can Say" (probably their fourth track in) before the impartial members of the French throng had something to latch onto. The intro done, Third's guitar was dampened and Faris Badwan's bittersweet inflections were given free reign to echo around the arena, The Horrors began to make sense. Still they remained clipped and within themselves for the rest of the set, absconding as the New Order sequenced sound of "Sea within a Sea" pattered to a close. They couldn't get away quick enough.

And so to "Primary Colours", as I've said it's a quality item, I have to think so, it's impossible for me to do otherwise 'cause I've been listening to Joy Division, The Psychedelic Furs, The Cure, Bauhaus and the Bunnymen for the last thirty years and "Primary Colours" (put simply) is an uncanny amalgam formed from the essence of these bands. The Horrors never descend into base simplistic mimicry (in the way the likes of The Editors do) the aforementioned influences quite naturally float to the surface of their gothic morass like fleeting shadows. But the shadows are there constantly.

All this is good though, yes? Well mostly it is. The cover of Primary Colours is too close to the cover of Pornography by the Cure. The lyrical language is limited and derivative from point of reference onwards; Primary Colours (Primary by the Cure), New Ice Age (Ice Age by Joy Division), Three Decades (Decades by Joy Division) I Can't Control Myself (Original Buzzcocks track or She's lost Control by Joy Division). Track one "Mirror's Image" the guitar has more than a mere vague connection with "Short Term Effect" by the Cure and the monotone vocal rant on "Primary Colours" is pure Richard Butler. But the thing that really twists my nagger is "Scarlet Fields". Why oh why doesn't Faris sing "Love will tear us apart" during the second half of the song it would make the illusion manifest and the suggestion a tribute! The keyboards are screaming out for him to do it and what is worse without Faris giving vent I have to listen to myself singing "Love, love will tear us apart again" over it.

So why all the hype with The Horrors?, is it me or are the music journo buggers who have them nominated for this and that or the other and put "Primary Colours" in their best of 2009 chart missing something? (Like context perhaps). For me The Horrors are a truly wonderful small town band who have just started out and are still relying heavily on personal musical influences whilst searching for something distinctively their own, DON'T GIVE THEM ANY PLAUDITS UNTIL THEY HAVE REACHED THEIR DESTINATION!, because otherwise they might not get there. "Primary Colours" is a quality item but it's not the album by The Horrors folk will still be yaking about thirty years from now, that Horrors album, I'm confident, is still to come.

Very early photo of THE HORRORS awaiting a punchline.