The Horrors : Primary Colours :: Review
The Horrors have distilled their sound into something a bit more accessible than their debut, “Strange House” on their new album, “Primary Colours.” “Primary Colours” maintains the band’s love of Joe Meek’s sound effects and funhouse rhythms but also incorporates more of a pop sensibility than the brutal “Strange House.” Singer Faris Badwan’s vocal style calls to mind a mashup of Psychedelic Furs meets The Cramps and the band is less thrashy and more melodic.
“Primary Colours” feels more dated than “Strange House” as if the band is channeling some of the ghosts of goth rock past. The dread inducing, “Mirror’s Image” opens with some ambient textures and often recalls Ian Curtis at his most glum. “Three Decades” dives head first into a woozy calliope and guitar assault on the senses welcoming you into some sort of sour carnival. “Who Can Say” and “New Ice Age” could be dead ringers for a new wave revival.
As the album closes, The Horrors run through a gamut of musical styles shoved through their shadowy looking glass often upping the weirdness factor as they progress. Every song becomes more off kilter and claustrophobic before the punky title track shakes things up. The album ends with the first single, “Sea Within A Sea” an eight-minute epic that transforms from a Jesus & Mary Chain rave up to an ambient wave, something that wouldn’t be out of place on a Seefeel record.
Rating: 
