The Horrors at HMV Forum: 20/12/09

The Horrors have had a pretty good year. Following the release of critically-acclaimed ‘Primary Colours’, they’ve played headline shows worldwide and been asked to tour Europe and America with the likes of Placebo and The Kills.

When Lung Rotter and Seven set up their Nintendo DS’ and started to play, most of the half empty Forum were pretty confused. The trio are essentially three middle aged men with very little stage presence playing a DS, but a few songs in it’s completely absorbing. Their Ulterior-esque EBM style sound carried through the venue well, each song deserving more applause than the last.

Main support HTRK should be more popular than they are with sets like this. Singer Jonnine ain’t no Florence Welch. She delivers each line in a monotone drawl, standing perfectly still, glaring over the crowd. Her only movement is to pound the drum in front of her rhythmically. The drum machine cuts through the distorted bass, the soft, quiet vocals and the waves of guitar noise.The crowd hardly moved- everyone just stopped to hear their MBV-sexy,JAMC-sharp sound, mesmerised.

Luckily, there was time to recover before The Horrors came onstage. After about five minutes of intro, the band finally strolled onstage, just about acknowledging the crowd around them. Drummer Joe’s bass drum start to ‘Mirror’s Image’ was followed by handclaps from a crowd that were already pushing closer forward, until Faris wandered to the mic, spitting the lyrics in his deep drawl. Guitarist Josh didn’t stop moving throughout the entire gig, constantly moving to his own guitar swirls, while bassist Rhys danced around half the stage throughout most of the gig. New single ‘Whole New Way’ sounded as fresh and positive as it does on record, working the crowd up to a frenzy, while previous single ‘Who Can Say’ caused many a bruised rib in the front row. The band ended with Sea Within A Sea, a song that sounds triumphant and shows just how far they’ve come.

Arriving onstage for the encore, Rhys joins Tom on synths for a cover of Suicide’s ‘Ghost Rider’, as song that perfectly suits Faris’ singing style and works perfectly for the band to follow on into crowd-pleaser ‘Count In Fives’, with every person in the Forum screaming back the ‘Hey!’ while Faris stared moodily into the crowd. The crush doesn’t end as the frantic, fuzzy bassline of ‘Sheena Is A Parasite’ starts a small riot before the song has even got to the chorus. Ending with ‘Gloves’, the entire crowd goes mad as the band tear it up on stage, clearly enjoying themselves.

The Horrors delivered one of their best shows to date, ending the year on a high. This could be their last UK gig for a while, as the band will start working on new material next year, but they have definitely left fans wanting more.

Words by Chloe Gynne

Photos by Becky Warren

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 9:44 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.