The Horrors - Skying

One of the more interesting musical developments in recent memory was The Horrors' transformation from a hopeless mess of hair to the machine that produced the sporadically brilliant future shoegaze of 'Primary Colours'. This, surely their most anticipated album, opens in worrying style with the Psychedelic Furs-meets-Northside baggy lollop of 'Changing the Rain'. The limp, baggy beats persist on 'You Said' which sounds like a depressed Ian McCulloch fronting Candy Flip. 'I Can See Through You' finally ups the pace but there is no real no song beneath the effects and the production is horrible and tinny. To their credit The Horrors at least try to move on after every album but really this is a poor attempt from a band who have proven that they can do a lot better. 'Endless Blue' is drifting nowhere with pointless horns when it suddenly shifts gears into something a little more substantial but marred by terrible drum sound and production that is somehow both muddy and over-compressed at the same time. By the time the forgettable 'Dive In' mumbles its way into focus I've pretty much had enough. I already know that the single 'Still Life' is a plodding catastrophe of a song; a sort of U2-aping flounder, complete with a synth line that Duran Duran would reject for being too 'Flock of Seagulls'. A terrible record, unfortunately, and surely a mistake to let the band produce their own record. The success of 'Primary Colours' now looks that it might have been substantially down to Geoff Barrow's knowing hand on the controls.