Release Date: July 12th, 2011
“The horror, the horror!” Colonel Kurtz utters as his last words in the 1979 movie classic, Apocalypse Now (and in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the novel that inspired it). Little did director Francis Ford Coppola or actor Marlon Brando anticipate what would follow, in the form of The Horrors.
Like Kurtz, The Horrors seem to be stuck in a moment they can’t get out of, but their moment is somewhere in the late ’80s as opposed to the ’60s or ’70s. They’ve been stuck in their basements, listening to the music of the Mighty Lemon Drops, James and Kitchens of Distinction spin on their record player, and they’ve come up with something rooted in the house they used to live in (whether it’s a Chapterhouse or a Springhouse, it’s a tad unclear) on this, their third release.
With a name like The Horrors, listeners could be forgiven for pigeonholing (bat-holing?) this London quintet a goth/psychobilly combo a la HorrorPops, The Cramps or My Jeans Love Jismball. Notwithstanding the fact that one of their members is named Coffin Joe, this band is nothing like that—perhaps the only way in which they truly fit their moniker is the sprawling, dizzying miasma of sound they craft on these ten lengthy pop confections.
True, there are sharp squalls of feedback and tremulous tenor vocals that seem to spiral downwards, like love, into the bottomless pits of hellacious ecstasy. But the overall effect of the sound is far sweeter than one might anticipate from an ensemble calling themselves The Horrors.
The opening cut, “Changing the Rain,” starts with the submarine tubular bell-like guitars that have more recently been sonically aped by Chicago’s own Smith Westerns. There’s no doubt that throughout, there is a bit of retrolicious glam-rock going on, in addition to the echoes of Ian McCulloch and his Bunnymen, the Candyskins and about any other late ’80s/early ’90s UK obscurity and/or exercise in shoegazery one could name.
“You Said” has a start-stop guitar fuzz lurching reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine’s second record, Isn’t Anything, while “Moving Further Away” starts out like Ride and ends up like The Flaming Lips. If analyzing from the perspective of titular criticism, the song titles alone are a dead giveaway: Given titles like “Dive In,” “Endless Blue” and “Oceans Burning,” it’s not a big stretch of the imagination to hear echoes of Slowdive, The Ocean Blue and Ride (who had songs called “Dreams Burn Down,” “Seagull” and “Vapour Trail” on their Nowhere release). Surely it can’t just be a British thing—after all, The Ocean Blue were from Pennsylvania.
Given that it’s impossible to hear this record without thinking of acts that have apparently influenced them, the big question is: Do The Horrors have anything original to say? All we know so far is they sound like a litany of other bands. Do they bring anything new to the table?
The short answer is no. There is no point in Skying where one hears something entirely new, or anything that is sock-knocking-off-worthy. Although the songs do trigger the occasional head-bob or half-smile, those are usually triggered by recognizing the source material. True, The Horrors, who aside from the aforementioned Mr. Joe, include Faris Badwan, Tom Furse, Rhys Webb and (the also improbably named) Joshua Third, do mix their favorite bits of post-punk/postmodern rock into an entertaining broth. However, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before. Is it an enjoyable listen on the first few spins? Sure. Is this record, in the end, just a quest for something new and different, that ends up as a long journey down the Nung River in a slow Cambodian boat to nowhere? Is there enough joyous melody to overcome the cacophony of this Britpop alchemy as it starts to come unhinged when the listener finally makes it, at long last, to the heart of darkness? Is it worth the trip?
At the end of this 10-song journey, it turns out that the musical ideas here are “hollow to the core” and The Horrors are nothing but Hollow Men.
Perhaps The Horrors is just another stupid band name. There have been far worse band names, and few with such an irrelevant moniker can boast such lovely, atmospheric, chiming pop tunes as those found on Skying. Even “Apocalypse Now” had been done before, and many would argue that the world is again stuck in that motion picture moment as well. Good movies are worth a review, good books are worth a reread, and good guitar-driven rock is worth a retread now and then.
The Horrors – Skying Tracklist:
- “Changing the Rain”
- “You Said”
- “I Can See Through You”
- “Endless Blue”
- “Dive In”
- “Still Life”
- “Wild Eyed”
- “Moving Further Away”
- “Monica Gems”
- “Oceans Burning”
