Moon & Back Music

If ecstasy came in 60 minutes of live performance it would probably sound like this

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Primary Colours, a concept yet to be applied to the bands wardrobe

A sea of noise sweeps over a darkened room. Five hundred black clad teenagers fill a space far too small to contain the excitement generated for what awaits. Seldom does such hype surrounding a band come to fruition however, this is by no means an average band. This is The Horrors.

As most are now aware, this is the band that were cast adrift in 2007 as none other than London ‘scenesters’ with nothing more than art school attitude, back combed bouffants and Cuban heels. However, 2009 has been the year of The Horrors. Returning with an album that fused the finest moments of My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division, Neu and even The Stone Roses, they’ve swept the critical board. In the process, they have earned a Mercury Prize nomination, NME’s album of the year and have very quickly become Britain’s mainstream outsiders. Tonight, however, none of this is relevant.

The five-piece take to the stage looking like a Tim Burton doodle and as the synth intro of Primary Colours opener ‘Mirrors Image’ is joined by the wall of sound created by the rest of the band, the crowd suddenly become aware that this is no ordinary ‘post album success’ money grab and mayhem rightly ensues.

Throughout the following ‘Three Decades‘ and album title track ‘Primary Colours’, frontman Faris Badwan storms the stage with an unnerving sense of urgency, only pausing to loom over the front row like a crow over his prey, screaming and spluttering every word as if it was his last. Meanwhile the rest of the band swoon gently in the background providing the canvas for the tale of romantic woe that comes with each proceeding track.

The band maintain such form for album favorites ‘I Can’t Control Myself’, ‘New Ice Age’ and the anthem at the heart of Primary Colours, ‘Scarlet Fields‘, which is met with the sing-a-long response it deserves. The highlight of the evening however, comes from album ‘slowy’ ‘I Only Think Of You’. Left out of the set over the summers festivals, it made it’s live return only recently and rightly so, as it provided the most genuinely beautiful and poignant moment of the night. Faris suddenly mutates into the love-child of The Cure’s Robert Smith and Boys Next Door era Nick Cave to give heartbreakingly sincere account of a collapsed relationship, in which he croons ‘To the end I would defend you/ In heaven I’d suspend you’, and ‘I only want to save you/ But I’ve done all I can do’. Making for a haunting yet compelling seven minutes to say the very least.

The two tracks that follow (Japanese bonus track ‘Whole New Way’ and lead single ‘Who Can Say’) seem sadly inadequate after such an overwhelmingly brilliant performance through no fault of the band, although ‘Sea within a Sea’ does transpire as well as it does on record and rivals, yet marginally fails, to out-shine the evenings previous highlight.

The night’s encore consists of three tracks from garage rock influenced debut ‘Strange House’ as well as a Cramps-esque rendition of Suicide’s ‘Ghost Rider’. All of which are thoroughly entertaining but seem highly infantile compared to the bulk of the mature sounds of Primary Colours.

Throughout the evening’s events the band collectively seem largely underwhelmed yet provide a flawless performance of each track. However, what startles most is the complete lack of ego amongst the group. Most bands after such critical acclaim would possibly be forgiven for using such invaluable attributes for between song subject matter. Not The Horrors. In fact merely a word is uttered between tracks, the occasional “Thank you” is murmured after a particularly rapturous applause but they maintain otherwise silent throughout refusing to shatter the Byronic persona fast becoming associated with them.

Surely The Horrors can now be championed as Britain’s alternative heroes and if each album that awaits is approached with the same refreshing diversity then they will surely remain at the forefront of Britain’s alternative scene for many years to come, then again ‘who can say’.

1. Mirror’s Image
2. Three Decades
3. Primary Colours
4. I Can’t Control Myself
5. New Ice Age
6. Scarlet Fields
7. I Only Think Of You
8. Whole New Way
9. Who Can Say
10. Sea Within A Sea

Encore 1

1. Ghost Rider
2. Count In Fives
3. Sheena Is A Parasite
4. Gloves