(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
British band Horrors debuted in a mildly aggressive
gothic-glam-psychedelic style on Strange House (Loog, 2007).
Jack The Ripper is a martial horror pow-wow dance a` la
Cramps that
accelerates to a demented vaudeville pace.
Count In Fives is a Devo-like anthem
with swinging acid organ.
Draw Japan increases the propulsive dimension with
quasi-Neu motorik rhythm
and feverish organ.
Excellent Choice is a spoof of horror soundtracks, replete with
evocative guitar twang and haunting keyboard drones.
Thunderclaps compete with Broadway musicals for
burlesque emphasis.
The second half is less convincing, although the
rockabilly of Little Victories and the
hysterical Sheena Is A Parasite still pack quite a bit of energy,
and the jazzy and dissonant instrumental Gil Sleeping suddenly displays
musical skills that were not apparent in the previous jokes.
Primary Colours (XL, 2009) introduced a completely different band,
playing a cross between synth-pop and dark-punk that yielded
the obnoxious dance-punk tune Mirror's Image,
the propulsive and poppy Who Can Say,
the soulful and shoegazing Do You Remember,
the morbid danceable Scarlet Fields (a` la Joy Division),
and the grandiloquent aria Primary Colours;
none of which was particularly exciting.
The seven-minute threnody I Only Think Of You was perhaps meant to be
something like their The End but ends up sounding like an aimless litany.
At least the eight-minute Sea Within A Sea along the way picked up
a techno beat to beat the monotony.
Some of the first album's verve survived
in the anthemic Three Decades (the album's fastest song unfurled by a breeze of cosmic keyboards),
in the raw I Can't Control Myself (reminiscent of garage-rock of the
Sixties),
and in the desperate New Ice Age (with echoes of Gun Club and Doors).
Skying (2011) is mostly a confused mess of failed experiments, ranging
from the languid lounge synth-pop of the 1980s (Still Life) and the
pompous glam-pop of David Bowie (Changing the Rain) to the
psychedelic-pop of the "Madchester" era (Monica Gems).
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