The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
Big Hurt  |  CD Reviews  |  Classical  |  Jazz  |  Live Reviews  |  Music Features
Best2012Vote-1000x50

The Horrors | Primary Colours

XL (2009)
By DANIEL BROCKMAN  |  May 6, 2009
3.5 3.5 Stars

090508_horror_amin
The new Horrors long-player is a throwback of some kind, but to what? Perhaps to a post-punk '80s that is alien to us John Hughes–weaned Yanks, where ersatz angst set to an Anglophile soundtrack is replaced by actual drudgery and nausea.

The Horrors, on their sophomore outing, consolidate their veddy British sense of cool around the notion of steady beats, icy synths, and limpid splattering glops of melting guitar. Vocalist Faris Badwan does at times wear out his welcome in a tuneless fashion redolent of the doldrums one would typically encounter deep into side two of a Psychedelic Furs LP. But who cares?

When this band hit it, they hit it hard, with lysergic drones that are peculiarly nihilistic and open-ended. The Horrors excel at evoking the mood of that moment when you're so high that you realize this whole thing is real and dangerous and that something horrible could happen — like the dripping dream chorus of "Scarlet Fields," with shape-shifting guitars sounding like something whizzing by you on a late-night highway.

Epic album closer "Sea Within a Sea" is the soundtrack to a wild party gone wrong, its motorik steadiness, spaghetti-western aridity, and squalling guitar stalling on a lock-grooved arpeggio before collapsing into off-the-rails lunacy. It's a fitting dénouement to a stunning paean to sadness and decay.
Related: The Horrors | Skying, The Horrors change more than their hair, Bjork | Biophilia, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , John Hughes, John Hughes, CD reviews,  More more >
| More

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 02/14 ]   The Addams Family  @ Shubert Theatre
[ 02/14 ]   "Aphrodite and the Gods of Love"  @ Museum of Fine Arts
[ 02/14 ]   "Processes and Dreams"  @ Panopticon Gallery
ARTICLES BY DANIEL BROCKMAN
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   [IN MEMORIAM] WHITNEY HOUSTON, 1963-2012  |  February 13, 2012
    Whitney Houston, who passed away this weekend of still-to-be-determined causes at the too-young age of 48, made an art out of depicting heroic triumph over adversity in her music
  •   A PUNK PHENOMENON GROWS UP  |  February 08, 2012
    It's time we faced it: the vanguards of rock have gotten really old.
  •   THURSTON MOORE MOVES ON  |  January 25, 2012
    When Thurston Moore takes the stage at Somerville Theatre on Tuesday, he will no doubt stroll through the wispy cloud-spires of last summer's Beck-produced solo effort, Demolished Thoughts (Matador).  
  •   SPREADING BLASPHEMOUS RUMORS WITH GHOST  |  January 17, 2012
    Can rock still be subversive?
  •   CLOSING THE BOOK ON THE WEST MEMPHIS THREE  |  January 05, 2012
    The Paradise Lost story began in 1993 with the discovery of the bodies of three West Memphis, Arkansas, children in a watery ditch, hogtied and mutilated. A confession led police to the arrest of three teenagers: Damon Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley.

 See all articles by: DANIEL BROCKMAN

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed