Primary Colours
Much-derided and hyped UK band takes an unexpected, and rewarding, left turn on its second album. Portishead's Geoff Barrow co-produces.
The Horrors broke out because of what they weren’t: The band’s screeching, unhinged garage-punk—backed by its vampires-on-a-coke-bender image—was a defiant gob of morbidity hocked in the face of all the Snow Patrols and Coldplays turning England’s kitchen-sink frustrations into dishwater mopiness. Primary Colours…
The Horrors have defied all expectation and delivered the most satisfying surprise that 2009 is likely to deliver.
A four-on-the-floor beat with a wash of synths isn't exactly the expected way for a Horrors album to begin, but that's exactly how "Mirror's Image" kicks off Primary Colours, which is such a big departure from the band's debut, Strange House, that it's fitting it's on a different label.
<p>Who could have guessed they would metabolise their influences with such bold panache, asks <strong>Dorian Lynskey</strong></p>