The Horrors
…who forgot that “Less is always more”
On May 5, 2009, XL Recordings released The Horrors’ latest album entitled Primary Colours (released digitally April 21st). Recorded with Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, the album consists of ten tracks and the video for the first single off the album, “Sea Within a Sea.”
Despite a few glimmers of hope sparsely scattered throughout the record, Primary Colours left me pretty disappointed. I hoped that as I listened to each of the tracks the album would grow on me, but the effort was in vain. Understandably, there was a certain direction in which the band was headed, but their GPS signals were obviously crossed because they kept driving in circles blasting noise out of their speakers. OK, here’s the deal: I get it, I really do get where The Horrors were trying to go with the Phil Specter-esque wall of sound that created a sense of cohesiveness throughout the entire album. But, and this is a really HUGE but, the ambient noises flowing from song to song were so overpowering that they made it impossible to distinguish almost all of the lyrics and individual instruments. No, not every amp needed to be turned up to 11… but they were.
The only song that is entirely coherent is track three, “Who Can Say.” When “I could never give you just what you deserve / Another man would surely learn” came pumping out of my iPod I didn’t know whether to feel the deep melancholy of those words, or get really pissed that I had missed out on lyrics like that during the rest of the record. This is also the only song where the vocals follow a melody and the instruments don’t melt into each other. The seventh track, “I Only Think of You,” follows in the footsteps of “Who Can Say” in that it’s understandable and melodic. However, at an unnecessary seven minutes, the synths carry on a continuous drone throughout the entire song making it far too long. The vocals are reminiscent of Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash – I shouldn’t have to explain why this is problematic.
I’d love to be able to quote more of the lyrics, or describe the vocals and instrumental stylings of the band more in depth, but everything just blended together into noise. At the beginnings of each song a drop of optimism would take hold of me and I’d think, “Awesome! This is a little bit of the Postal Service, a little Morrissey, a little of The Cure.” But after that first eight count, when the synths, guitars, vocals and bass all meshed into a singular sound, a familiar disappointment set in. Is it worth buying the entire album to hear the song “Who Can Say”? Probably not. But I would definitely recommend buying the singular track if your fixin’ for a taste of The Horrors.
For more information and to see their video, head to www.thehorrors.co.uk
