Culture

From the gimmicky, narcotic goth implosions of their debut album Strange House, to the stylish post-punk/shoegazing of their sophomore Primary Colours, The Horrors have demonstrated that their metamorphosis is an ongoing affair. Guitars have gone from screeching to fuzzy, drums from driving to decorative, vocals from comical to Joy Division-esque, and their target audience from teenage girls who drink their own blood to readers of Pitchfork Media. And now, after huge shifts in their production, influences (from The Birthday Party to My Bloody Valentine?) and - dare I say it - hairstyles, The Horrors are getting darn close to perfection.

Skying is Part III of The Horrors’ evolutionary journey, and they at last abandon their angst and fury to instead explore more psychedelic realms. The punch and immediacy for which they were originally known has been replaced by a growing emphasis on mood, atmosphere, coloration and synths, and gone is any lingering tendency towards style-over-substance.
 
The lacklustre production of the first two albums has been improved on and expanded, almost to excess; each song on Skying is layered in gorgeous, syrupy effects, giving the album a dense and aquatic feel. People will call it overproduced, but I see it as gloriously overdone, like Oasis' Be Here Now or Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion. The scale of the whole thing is enormous; tracks like 'Changing the Rain' (personal favourite) or 'Oceans Burning' sound as infinitely large, deep and enveloping as the album cover (the skyward tribal rhythm that introduces ‘Changing the Rain’ is one of the most perfectly-captured sounds in music I've ever heard).
 
Lead single from Skying, 'Still Life', is another highlight, nicely summing up The Horrors’ new direction. The track begins with a swelling, break-of-dawn electronic pattern, the likes of which you'd hear on a Boards Of Canada record. Its startling clarity heightens your senses just in time for the locked and simple rhythm section to trudge its way into the fore. Compared to the opaque yawnfest of some previous Horrors’ tracks, this is already life-affirming stuff. The perfect foundation now laid down, keyboardist Tom Cowan breathes an ethereal Eighties’ synth lead into the mix, immediately reminiscent of brighter post-punk acts like Echo & The Bunnymen, and even Killing Joke in their Brighter Than A Thousand Suns period. Combine all that with a shameless Simple Minds-style chorus, and you've got one of the best things The Horrors have ever done. The evolution of the track is similar to Primary Colours highlights 'Mirror's Image' and 'Scarlet Fields', but feels more logical, more momentous, and a hell of a lot better.
 
Three albums full of nods and homages to other bands tells me that The Horrors are never going to be insanely original, and that their greatest achievement will instead be a Frankenstein creation of well-chosen and well-channelled influences, blended seamlessly together. And Skying is the work that closest fits that description thus far.
 
4/5 Stars.