Primary Colours
Any talent must pass a musical gauntlet of critics who attempt to lance the underbelly of a band’s sound. These tattling sissies identify a litany of the band’s influences to criticize their music instead of illustrating the power of a Joy Division record. If I had to name every band Joy Division (a post-punk Beatles, anyone?) influenced, I’d be here all day and night just composing a useless list. Of course there are artists that are so clearly identical to bands of the past but when you come across an album as brilliant as the one I reviewed, it’s hard to let these shallow condemnations go without commentary. So, now that I’m done criticizing critics, for unsubstantial criticisms and conjuring unfair comparisons, I’ll continue reviewing Primary Colours by The Horrors.
From the album’s first measure, we are greeted with the soft thumping of a beat overlaid with cascades of washing ambience. This first bit of information already tells any fan of The Horrors that something has changed. Something is new here. Perhaps, what’s so surprising about Primary Colours is that it is so different from their debut, Strange House.
How did this transformation occur? To get to the anatomy of the album, we have to understand the changes that The Horrors made before Primary Colours. In March of 2007, The Horrors moved from Loog Records to XL Recordings. The lineup changed as well, as Timethy Furse switched from synths to bass and Spider Webb from bass to keyboards. The band also altered their staff of producers to Geoff Barrow of Portishead, Craig Silvey, and Chris Cunningham. The Horrors so honed the sound of this album into this delectable pallet of sonic paints (excuse the cheesy pun) that they were forced to withdraw their performance at the Underage Festival in 2008. This band, known for their fashion sense and rockstar antics, focused on producing quality music instead of continuing with a status quo garage-post-punk sound (not that it’s such a bad thing).
Songs such as the album’s lead single, “Sea Within a Sea”, casts a hypnotic spell that will make one feel what it was like to hear The Doors’ “The End” the first time in 1967, while tracks, such as “New Ice Age”, continue to maintain the garage sound that drew so many fans to their music in the first place, and yet it all plays together beautifully. Farris Badwin’s haunting vocals reverberate through the entire album as the rhythm section pound an awe-inspiring field of sonic force not heard since Interpol’s Antics (another band wrongfully criticized for their Joy Division similarities). Many gems, such as “Scarlet Fields”, festoon this cinematic album, giving creedance to the genre of film the band has adopted for their name.
While listening to this album, I think of Robert Johnson’s transaction on the Crossroads, in which he sold his soul to the devil to master the art of the guitar. It is not unbelievable to me that a band can drastically mature from one album to the next; it’s just a very rare occurrence – especially on a sophomore album.
You will almost never see me ever give an album a 5/5 but Primary Colours deserves it. Definitely one of the best records I’ve heard in a long while and guaranteed to be an album of the year on many notable lists including this one. This is the album all of us shoegaze-loving fans have been waiting for.
The Horrors are currently on tour with The Kills to support Primary Colours, released today, May 4th, 2009.
