The Horrors are a band who wear their influences as proudly as John Rambo wore his blood-spattered bandana, and third record ‘Skying‘ is no exception – though this time the influences are far less obvious.
Coming snarling out of, erm, Southend in 2007, The Horrors initially fused a conceptual sound that was unequal parts The Fuzztones, Sonics, Joe Meek and Screaming Lord Sutch, and while their outré garage rock was enough to put off many an NME reader (the band having been pushed fairly relentlessly by the publication in that inception year), they have subsequently expanded their record collections and scope, as evidenced on euphoric sophomore effort ‘Primary Colours’, which was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2009.
How to follow such a critical smash? Self-produce the third record from a box room in East London, of course. But if the machinations of the album were performed in DIY fashion, the sound is anything but. In fact, ‘Skying’ may well come to be known as the band’s magnum opus, a starry-eyed gem of psychadelia, a treasure trove of special songs.
No longer do they sound frozen or electrocuted: there is no mishmash of cross-purposes (or lack of purpose at all), or musical car wrecks; the band have entirely shelved concept for construct. They no longer care about going it alone with just energy in their guitar cases. ‘Skying’ is a dreamy reflection of a band at ease, a band that has endured mega-hype in their early days and critical acclamation in the intervening years, and are happy now to simply let the music speak for itself.
The album opens in sweeping fashion, ‘Changing the Rain’ a vortex of swirling guitars and dreamy vocals. This is certainly a song not to have been expected from The Horrors when they started out (even ‘Primary Colours’ didn’t see them this unshackled). Heavy bass whumps remain, but now singer Faris Badwan has ditched the snigger and wails elegiac refrains into a baggy beat (yes, baggy: MBV, Happy Mondays baggy) that could have come off ‘Chicken Rhythms’.
‘You Said’ is another dramatic ditty, with the band encouraging many a Simple Minds comparison in almost every recent review. The sound of the 80s is obvious; synth is rolled out experimentally, and it is almost worth calling the record concept, a timewarp (even Badwan can’t help but implore ‘You gotta give me love!’). But this is not a criticism. This is not rock-lite, but an operatic sound that nods to Birthday Party and ‘Closer‘-era Joy Division, while evoking Psychedelic Furs and Kevin Shields.
Forget pop, this is a sound that cannot be straitjacketed into any one genre. ‘You Said’ has Faris sounding sonorously breathy, and the trend continues on ‘I Can See Through You’, a wonderfully effusive pop song (‘Don’t you wish you could live this life?) with a chorus fans can sing back into. The refrain of ‘I can see through youuuuu and I don’t get it’ is a warbling, fractal piece of musical genius.
If the echoes seem superficial (one-handed synth lines, watery, trippy epiphanies), one will likely be converted by ‘Endless Blue’, which starts out like ‘Forever Changes‘ (bass, cymbals, hints of brass) but explodes into life with jollily revved guitars, a Smashing Pumpkins-esque riff and Badwan’s laidback vocals. This is a positively joyous racket; guitarist Joshua Hayward is quoted as saying, ‘I discovered the fact that you can play more than ten guitar tracks on a record. And I was just experimenting.’
The only note jotted after listening to ‘Dive In’ consists of two words: ‘funeral sounding’, but after a second (and third) listen, it emerges amongst the top two or three tracks on the album, beginning with a spacey guitar, unfurling in a series of baggy go-rounds. The sound is apocalyptic, and the guitars like Dinosaur Jr. being stomped on by The Charlatans, before Echo & The Bunnymen show up to restore musical order. The arrangements are dizzying and difficult to describe. Suddenly there is a heavy wall of noise, like a bulkhead, emerging from the calm motorik momentum of the previous two and a half minutes. And then: silence.
At the halfway stage one is thinking: Simple Minds, post-punk meets acid house meets trance-rock meets Billy Idol’s depressive alter-ego, stunning guitars and drums and songs that press insistently on the memory like panes of Perspex. And then ‘Skying’ really comes into its own.
‘Still Life’, the album’s lead single, is wave upon wave of grandiose synth washes (no, wait) over cosmic, cocksure lyrics (‘When you wake up, you will find it’). While they have in the past been described as trend-capturing fashionistas, clearly The Horrors care little for the current scuzz of low-fi and are content to reproduce some New Gold Dream-era bravura (‘The moment that you want is coming if you give it time’). Never has the band sounded so patient, and the whiff of Argent’s ‘Hold Your Head Up’ is as welcome as a long-expected turn in the road.
While ‘Wide Eyed’ sounds like filler, minimalist, dull mellotron brass, ‘Moving Further Away’ is a euphoric eight-minute dirge that sounds like Fujiya & Miyagi; the kind of song that could have found a berth on the Bafta-winning Lost in Translation soundtrack (Faris singing, ‘It’s different now, I’m the only one who flies’ parodying the band’s chrysalis-to-butterfly metamorphosis). Simple Minds? Forget about it, this is more like the krautrock of Can or the surgically produced melding of sounds favoured by LCD Soundsystem. Exuberant and idea-driven, it is perhaps the highlight of a record full of highlights.
‘Monica Gems’ is the most direct clash between The Horrors of old and new, a gothic ramble that might be more suited to a live show, but album closer ‘Oceans Burning’ is undeniably beautiful. ‘It’s a joy to see you waiting there,’ Faris croons, ‘It’s a joy to know you’re waiting there’; one almost imagines a soldier returning from France across the Channel to a beau atop Beachy Head, a Suede influence is omnipresent. Curiously this vast, glistening coda descends into an almighty jam towards the end, reminding us the group still have cojones to match their panache.
Ultimately this is a record that will not be for everyone – many will simply be turned off by the Simple Minds’ comparisons. However, ‘Skying’ shows a band at the peak of their powers: content, experimental, luridly romantic and postmodern – a sonic journey into 80s post-punk dynamism from a group of musicians who never cease to surprise.
(Ronnie McCluskey)
