horrors - primary colors cover

The Horrors

Primary Colours

★★★★☆

1 Mirror's Image 4:51
2 Three Decades 2:50
3 Who Can Say 3:41
4 Do You Remember 3:28
5 New Ice Age 4:25
6 Scarlet Fields 4:43
7 I Only Think of You 7:07
8 I Can't Control Myself 3:28
9 Primary Colours 3:02
10 Sea Within a Sea 7:59

XL Records, 2009

REVIEW

Pulling a remarkable 180 on their original batcave-cum-psychobilly sound, The Horrors reinvent themselves on this fascinating sophomore album. With Portishead‘s Geoff Barrow behind the mixing desk, the band’s original psychobilly influences (Cramps, Birthday Party) have mostly fallen away in favour of My Bloody Valentine’s tremolo-bending soundscapes and The Cure’s monochrome gloom.

“Mirror’s Image”, “Scarlet Fields” and “Primary Colours” will grab anyone jonesing for a shoegaze fix, while the Love Will Tear Us Apart-indebted “Who Can Say” is a standout pop single. And yet, most of the record still pales into insignificance next to “Sea Within A Sea”. The 8-minute album-closing epic combines Kraftwerk-ian keyboards and Can-like Krautrock into a piece de resistance that defines the entire album.

February 21, 2020