The Horrors are a busy band. This year alone, the UK fivesome worked with ex-Jesus and Mary Chain bassist Douglas Hart on a video, toured with The Kills and Nine Inch Nails on their ‘farewell’ dates in NYC and released one of the year’s best, most phenomenally-opaque attempts at a blend of garage rock and goth since the above-mentioned JAMC, that, in an icing-on-the-cake type of way, also reached number 25 on the UK Album charts and was nominated for a Mercury Prize. Phew.
With all this effervescent hype to go off, all of which is thoroughly deserved I might add, I headed to The El Rey in Los Angeles with high hopes of walking out in a few sort hours later having witnessed one of the year’s best shows. Making it to the venue a bit after the 8p.m. door time seemed to only add to the ever-growing pile of excitement that I had hoped this show would bring as I waited an hour until Costa Mesa surf-rockers Japanese Motors took the stage.
Japanese Motors The last time I saw this foursome of tanned-up surf rockers, I was shuffling around New York’s October streets for the ’08 CMJ Festival. Under a 55-degree temperature haze, a song like “Single Fins and Safety Pins” with lyrics like “Come on down to the beach where the sun is shining, kick your shoes off and drink some wine,” became a like musical post card much in the same way The Beach Boys were (who no doubt sold records, at times, off their name alone). I remember liking the Japanese Motors then and realizing that one of the biggest things they had going for them musically, was their nostalgic take on simple, bouncy pop numbers.
Their Horrors support gig at The El Rey proved to be a far cry from the CMJ shows. Nothing really happened onstage- they played a safe set of songs, thanked the crowd and left. Shaggy-haired singer Al Knost who wore a tattered, white and blue all-over-print children’s sweater decorated with teddy bears, had a stage presence that resembled something of seminal UK-shoegazers Stone Roses' frontman Ian Brown; unassuming and jaded. Overall their set sounded like a cheesy, suntanned beach-party hangover of sorts, leaving me with a little sand in the ears that needing to be knocked out before I could continue the night.
The Horrors Having seen only a few songs of The Horrors’ 2009 Coachella set, the idea of settling in to a close spot up front, beer in hand, seemed liked the only way to do this. The curtain raised and the filmic-swirl that is the first 1:30 of Primary Colours’ opener “Mirror’s Image” began to build to its drum roll bridge as singer Faris Badwan, dressed like the rest of the members, in tight-fitting black and white menswear; suits, skinny trousers and ties, slowly walked on stage.
Outright, The Horrors are aware of themselves and the power of their live show. There are no ‘warm up’ songs needed, no routine to settle into and certainly no on-stage banter between songs. From the start, the atmosphere was fixed and for the next hour. The room became filled with this wonderful, symphonic set of sonic density that bands like the above-mentioned JAMC or My Bloody Valentine have become famous for.
Romantic and crushing at the same time, standouts like “Who Can Say” with the sterile, almost “Love Will Tear Us Apart” similar synth line and the guitar-soaring track “Do You Remember” were, like their album counterparts, full of infectious, garage-rock charm and gothic gloom.
Amidst the swirling stage glow and the idiosyncratic playing, the night’s real spectacle centered on singer Badwan and his total progression as a frontman. From their debut Strange House days, where the primary goal seemed to excite and fright in an jolt of organ-soaked Cramps-styled blaze, Badwan has now grown up; commanding his stage and his band into something more than a fury of spastic blues-punk, but rather, into the expansive depths of a swirling, romantic abyss that begs to be recognized, studied and applauded.
It’s no wonder Trent Reznor called Primary Colours “the greatest thing I’ve heard in a long time.”
--Matt Draper
The Horrors performing "Who Can Say" at The El Rey in Los Angeles, CA 10.1.09
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