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The Horrors new LP
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Jasonaparkes
Jasonaparkes
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Re: The Horrors new LP
May 09, 2009, 15:44
I was aware of another band called The Horrors...I think on In the Red-records? Not much attention was deserved for their prior material - always compared to The Birthday Party, but really more Daisy Chainsaw.

I read the gushing reviews and bought the record. I wanted to be blown away. I was not and have sold my copy already...

The two main influences appear to be shoegazing and Krautrock - which isn't very original. Fucking everyone is using those references these days...the only more tired reference point would be Post-Punk (and one track about halfway through sounds a bit Wire, or Menswe@r).

Let's consider bands already citing Shields/MBV/Shoegazing these days - Ladytron, Black Cab, Jeniferever, Ambulance Ltd, Secret Machines, School of Seven Bells, the Jonestown, Mono, Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Fennesz, Joy Zipper, Asobi Seksu, A Place to Bury Strangers, Darker My Love, Wolves in the Throne Room, Nadja etc.

& Krautrock is becoming a tired reference point - how many of the many acts citing it are doing more than adding a Can-groove or the Motorik beat? Of course there are some fine acts who are citing Neu! et al, but when The Horrors, on a shite major label/directionless/associated with Peaches Geldof, jump on a bandwagon after Death Cab for Cutie, Oasis, and Kasabian, you have to worry. As with the mainly chuff Brand Neu! compilation, there is a suspicion that some of these bands are cool by association with Rother, Dinger et al.

...so what are The Horrors bringing to the show that's new?

There aren't any songs. Some of it sounds like The Psychedelic Furs vocally, but we know the reference point is more likely to be Interpol. The supposedly post-Shields guitar-exploration sounds like Big Country's bag-pipe sound on about the 3rd track. The lyrics - printed on the sleeve for reasons that confound - are just terrible and don't need to be there. The worst problem is the singer sounding like an annoying take on Brett Anderson - I never thought Suede and shoegazing/Krautrock went together. Though the band who didn't have any songs they reminded me of the most were Strangelove.

Maybe it'll grow on me and I've been the victim of over-enthuasistic music journalism, or worse, music journalism that is merely rewriting the accompanying press release....

Listening to that album several times I just thought of Kevin Rowland's immortal line, "You must be fucking joking!"
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