Instead of posting Part 4 separately, because we’re running a little behind this week, we just went right for the full Friday compilation. The full dialectic, including Megan’s final, insecurity-laden statement about a specific British pop music torch, can be found after the jump along with a link to the full album stream, which is definitely worth checking out.
Fr
om: Brandon Hall
To: Megan Bowers
Megan! What’s up, dude? I gotta say, I kind of can’t stop listening to this album, which also means I can’t go anywhere because we only have a streaming version until it comes out in the States. But who am I kidding? I spend most of my time in front of a computer anyway.
So, details: This is The Horror’s third album. Their first, Strange House, released in 2007 saw a British band doing the goth thing about as hard as they could, including stage names even John Waters would appreciate: Faris Rotter, Spider Webb, Tomethy Furse, Joshua Von Grimm and Coffin Joe. They even had a Chris Cunningham directed video for their first single, “Sheena is a Parasite,” which, like most Cunningham videos, is a terrifying thrill and economically packed into a mere minute and 38 seconds. But you’re more familiar with their earlier efforts than I, so I’ll let you speak to the growth of the band.
I will say, though, that the band has seemingly done away with a lot of their goth-punk affectations and made something incredibly, indelibly British. I’m actually shocked by how Skying seems to enshroud itself in every conceivable British music stereotype. By which I mean, if I told you to close your eyes and think of British rock music, this is what you would think of. Stone Roses, Joy Division, Blur, The Cure, The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine, Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd, and, obviously, The Beatles. (Maybe not Radiohead, so much, but who needs ’em?) There is a distinctive sound in the history of British music and The Horrors seem to have tapped into it effortlessly.
I wouldn’t even go so far as to say these bands are influences, exactly. At least not consciously. Nothing on the album sounds like they’re trying to sound one way or another. Every song feels natural and easy, wholly their own, the sound of their British brethren so firmly ingrained into their songwriting that they manage to come off as neither derivative nor unoriginal, yet still firmly cemented in the company of their countrymen.
Megan, last time we talked, I felt you had a problem with the very prevalent 80s takeover of our contemporary musical landscape, but this band on this album feels like a 1988 stadium filler, doesn’t it? It’s huge and lush and danceable. Mopey goth rock, this is absolutely not. They could pack the The Haçienda for a nonstop, geeked-out weekend right alongside New Order. Please don’t tell me that’s a bad thing.
Also, did you ever think the goth-punks of Strange House would make an album so infectiously…upbeat?
80s then, 80s now, 80s forever!
Brandon
From: Megan Bowers
To: Brandon Hall
Do I really need to go over all the reasons the 80s were bad?
Reagan, Crack, Cocaine, Deurbanization, Mass Outsourcing, Flock of Seagulls, Just Say No to Drugs, Systemic Disenfranchisement of the Working Class, the first Bush, Milli Vanilli, “Whatchoo talkin’ about Willis?,” Dirty Dancing, Cocktail, Tom Cruise…
The goddamned list goes on. That said, I do not hate everything from the 80s. It’s a full freaking 10 years; how can you hate 100% of 10 full years? (Though, I’m not too fond of the aughts, I must say.)
And on Skying, I think I’m with you. It is often everything the 80s should have been – power driven pop music without an infuriating reliance on a synthesizer. You’re absolutely spot on about The Horrors being able to pack The Haçienda. “I Can See Through You,” “Dive In,” and “Endless Blue” are all songs I wouldn’t have hesitated to work into my sets DJing in Detroit. With honorary mention to “Changing the Rain,” “You Said” and “Moving Further Away.”
You asked if I could have seen this coming, and honestly, yes, I did, but only because their sophomore album Primary Colours had already been such a surprise. Aside from a couple songs here and there, Primary Colours abandoned the goth-punk aesthetic they had worked so hard to cultivate on their first album, Strange House. Frontman, Faris Badwin, opened up his songwriting to a more British style and affectation, allowed space for his melodies to develop and soften, and they did away with their campy goth names. Primary Colours was kind of a shock. Skying is only a continuation of the direction they started on their last album. And, man, it really is impressive. The production value is insanely high; it’s lush and enveloping unlike either of their preceding albums. Every song, fast or slow, fills a room, bass lines and horns liquidated and flooding the world while Badwin and his guitars speed through on a suped-up motorboat to “Fuck Yeah!”
What I’m most curious about, however, is the whole idea of “the gimmick.” They’re named The Horrors, their first album was all goth-punk, but after its modicum of success, they abandoned the sound and embraced Britpop. So, like, why? Because they’re kind of stuck with the name, now, even if it doesn’t totally fit anymore. I wonder if the music on Strange House was really the kind of music they were making on their own or if they were pushed in that direction. Jack White, when describing the red, white, and black pseudo-sibling gimmick of the White Stripes remarked that it was the only way he could figure to entice people to listen to a two person band playing folk/country rock music. They needed something to make them weird. But, then, from that perspective, the gimmick was made to mask or enhance their musical choices. In the case of The Horrors, it seems like they set out to be one thing, then changed their mind. Their music changed right along with their schtick.
Maybe there was no other way for them to stand out from the masses. I don’t know their history, really, and I’m curious to find out what the hell happened. And I wouldn’t be disappointed at all if the answer was just that they decided to go in a different direction, because Skying is great. I like it infinitely more than Strange House. I just think it’s unfortunate they have to keep the name The Horrors. I think it’s kind of a stupid name.
Better than Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, though. But then, what isn’t?
“I can see through you,”
Megan
From: Brandon Hall
To: Megan Bowers
All right, Megan. Imma give it to you straight. I’m pretty drunk right now. I know it’s not cool, nor professional, but I had a friend in town tonight and he’s leaving tomorrow and I know we gotta have this shit wrapped up by sometime Friday, so fuck it. I’m gonna write my response at 1:40 in the morning. And it’s going to have typos and it probably won’t be coherent.
But hell, maybe we can just look at it as one of the fun quirks inherent to AudioVole. Besides, a lot of people only ingest music in a state of inebriation, and considering we’ve mentioned The Haçienda in 100% of our posts so far, maybe we should have been doing this whole dialectic slightly fucked up from the start.
I feel like your biggest point was “the gimmick” and I feel like I can’t adequately speak to that right now. For the most part, I guess I think everyone needs to find something. Pop music is pop music. The structures don’t vary much, the chords and time signatures are typically pretty similar. Everyone is aping The Beatles in some fashion. So you gotta have something. I didn’t really like Strange House, and hadn’t heard Primary Colours until you sent it to me. And you’re right, Primary Colours is a huge step forward for them. Skying, for that matter, only continues that momentum. It’s my favorite of their three albums. So if it took a gimmick for them to get on the cover of NME before they even released an EP, then that’s awesome, because it seems like there’s a very good chance no one would have heard of them otherwise, and they might not have had an adequate opportunity to make one album, let alone three. All hail gimmicks if it benefits good bands that deserve attention.
But then, isn’t it so sad that genuinely good bands need gimmicks, when there seem to be so many absolutely shitty bands populating the radios?
I also want to speak to a point that I think I started, which is to say that this album is a “dance album,” or, at least, that this band should be performing in front of dancers. I don’t think that’s entirely true. I mean, I want to liken them a little to The Smiths or My Bloody Valentine in that, “Yes. You can dance to these, but you have to be prepared to dance to The Smiths or My Bloody Valentine, and it’ll probably help to be familiar with the songs.” You’re a pretty great DJ and I have no doubt that you’d be able to mix in any of those songs you mentioned in the midst of a raver, but would you just put the album on start to finish and declare to your minions, “DANCE!”? I can’t imagine you would.
Because I actually think The Horrors are at their best when they’re playing the atmospheric minstrels as opposed to the dance floor dictators. The lushness of first single, “Still Life,” is hard to ignore. It builds and twists and moans beneath reverbed-out guitars and horns, as does following track, “Wild Eyed.” “Endless Blue” is one of my favorite songs on the album primarily because of how it opens with such a loose, jazzy trot, only to be blasted away by some serious pop-RAWK. And “Moving Further Away” and “Oceans Burning,” specifically for their hypnotic growth and subsequent eruptions create two of the most solid and, yet, experimental tracks on the album. And these tracks are, I think, the foundation for what The Horrors are now, and what I expect them to be years from now.
Megan, I don’t think this is a band, gimmick or no, that is going away any time soon. In fact, three albums in, they’re already three times as consistent as Interpol. I could easily see them releasing solid album after solid album for years to come, as long as they stay together. And frontman, Faris Badwin, seems self-effacing and sincere enough that it’s hard to foresee this band falling apart anytime soon.
Also, can we talk about the horns? I have nothing to say about them except that I love them. I love the horns. More horns, please.
“When you wake up, you will find me.” Be scared,
Brandon
From: Megan Bowers
To: Brandon “Drunk-Ass” Hall
A drunk post? Really? That’s what you’re giving me to respond to? Come on, Brandon. You’re better than that.
Strange House is better than you think. I’m actually not sold that Skying is obviously better than Primary Colours. They’re about equal to me, though Primary Colours gets points for being such a surprise.
Drunk or no, I feel like you make a solid point about gimmicks. If it helps a good band get recognized, whether The White Stripes, The Vivian Girls, The Horrors, or whomever, who are we to complain. I want good bands to get recognition because I need someone to tell me about good music.
How do you make sure people hear a tree falling in the woods? Entice folks to come to the woods.
Still, I’d like to know more about what possessed them to go goth-punk, and, then, why they shifted their sound so drastically.
The last thing I want to point out is, with all of the similarities we can draw between The Horrors and past British acts, it’s not like they sound a lot like any contemporary bands. At least none that I can think of. All of the touchstone/influence/like-sounding bands you listed in your first post are either defunct, recently reunited, or at least well-past their heyday. It’s kind of amazing to think about but The Horrors seem to be carrying that long-burning British torch almost by themselves.
I feel like this is a pretty outlandish statement that not a few people would be happy to contradict. And I’m not implying in some ridiculous fashion that they are the only “true” British band or something like that. I’m just at a loss right now to think of a pop rock band from Great Britain that sounds like it was borne directly from that specific breed of British pop past.
I don’t know. That feels like a foolish statement but I’m publishing it anyway.
“Bring all (our*) wonders to life,”
Megan
*I couldn’t tell what he was saying.
AudioVole 
Discussion
No comments yet.