With the release of their previous album Primary Colours, produced by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, The Horrors surprised and astounded critics who had cast them as faux-Goth posers. The album, clever and memorable, was steeped in an 80’s alternative aesthetic that spanned Shoegaze, Krautrock and Goth-pop. Skying is a slow building sonic haze that the band produced themselves and continues their love affair with 80’s Goth-rockers The Chameleons and 70’s kraut-rockers Neu! Opening track Changing The Rain is a wash of hazy synths and a skipping Madchester beat over which singer, Faris Badwan, croons dreamily and half-intelligibly. The dream continues with first single Still Life, another measured synth ballad that evolves slowly with expanding beauty into something quite anthemic. I cannot help but be reminded of Simple Minds. The album’s slow build pushes towards its centrepiece, Moving Further Away, a hypnotic krautrock brew that has Badwan chanting ‘Everybody moving further away/See you where the light ends’. It climbs ever higher to a Sonic Youth-like noise fest that ends suddenly and leaves one exhausted and smiling. While their influences are varied but obvious, The Horrors manage to combine them in a way that makes Skying an intoxicating sonic blur yet seemingly filled with purpose.
REVIEW: Nic Roos
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