The Horrors released their debut album in 2007 to wide acclaim. At the time, few bands were willing to exhume the half-forgotten corpse of dark wave, gothic, and post-punk, and none carried it off with the same panache. Blink, and nearly twenty years have passed: the once-promising upstarts from Essex are now veterans of the English rock scene, with six albums and an enviable career behind them; seasoned yet still haunted by the same dark fury.
Immersive, cinematic, brooding, at once erotic and relentlessly danceable, The Horrors’ music acquires another dimension on stage. The quasi-shamanic presence of Faris Badwan, the serrated textures of Joshua Hayward’s guitar, the subterranean pulse of Rhys Webb’s bass, the propulsive drive of Jordan Cook’s drums, and the spectral swells and stabs of Amelia Kidd’s synths fuse into a single force. Together they engulf the audience in a noir-romantic world where Joy Division, Killing Joke, and Lords of the New Church crash headlong into industrial noise and the throb of techno.
The set leaned heavily on their latest album Night Life and their breakthrough sophomore effort Primary Colours. Among the standouts were a towering rendition of "Sea Within Sea" and the euphoric sweep of "Something to Remember Me By" from V. For ninety minutes, The Horrors turned darkness into rhythm, their shadows cut by strobe and the harsh glow of contre-jour, songs moving with a pulse that drew bodies into motion, a ritual of gloom and release where dance and despair become inseparable.
