The Horrors – V – Album Review by Killian Laher

After a gap of three years since the uninspired Luminous album, The Horrors are back with their fifth album.  Here they have moved into a more concise, poppy direction.  Opening track Hologram goes for a really retro feel with heavy reliance on Gary Numan-channelling synthesizers.  Press Enter to Exit is a complete change of tack, it’s pure soul-pop and very catchy but it doesn’t sound a bit like what you might expect from The Horrors.

The electro-industrial Machine places the band in more familiar territory, with a fine chorus rising from the clatter and squall.  A whole album like this would please many, though a Nine Inch Nails album would work equally well.  Instead the album shifts back to moody pop songs such as Ghost, Point of No Reply and the dark postures of Weighed Down.  All of which are big on memorable choruses but not so big on personality.

Gathering sees singer Faris Badwan do a fine facsimile of late period Bowie, with just the right amount of detachment and smoothness to the vocal.  It’s a Good Life builds slowly into something of an anthem with Badwan singing “it’s a good life… until it’s gone”.  Final track Something To Remember Me By is impossibly catchy and is constructed like a real floor-filler, with an insistent beat built for the clubbing scene.

There are no true epics here like Sea Within a Sea or Moving Further Away.  Instead we get a decent collection of a few different shades of pop and a band that isn’t quite sure what it wants to be.

Track List:

1. Hologram
2. Press Enter to Exit
3. Machine
4. Ghost
5. Point of No Reply
6. Weighed Down
7. Gathering
8. World Below
9. It’s a Good Life
10. Something to Remember Me By

Machine –