The Horrors – Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY June 13th 2018
The British aren’t afraid of rock stars. It seems indie rock has developed an unhealthy relationship with humility in recent years and apparently The Horrors seem interested in tearing that down.
The contrast was stark with Brooklyn based openers Hypoluxo whom performed an admirably tight set of shoegaze infused post punk tunes that had the crowd nicely chilled and wondering whom pays their rent. A group of guys who’s concern was one of strictly the music, man. And although it was enjoyable, they wanted to do the right thing, clearly, and rock n roll is always better when it feels a little dangerous.
The Horrors took the stage with a drastically different agenda. Rocking a full Vinyl get up with plenty of zippers intact, Ferris Badwin reminded that indeed frontman still exist and that perhaps rock has been missing larger than life personalities for a tad too long now. He looks like how his voice sounds. Towering, deep, aggressive and just a touch of goth. His sheer presence was worth the ticket cost.
The boys had it together tonight as they pummeled the crowd with bass that rumbled in your chest, guitar squalls that shifted consciousness and the occasional vocal shriek that would bring in the climax. Leaning heavily on their strongest material, The Horrors played a collection of evenly split selections from Skying, Primary Colors and their fantastic latest offering, 5.
On record, The Horrors come off with a lot of style while lacking in substance. Farris kinda puts the same melody over everything and there’s little to chew on in terms of lyrics. However, in person, it all makes sense. During set high light “Endless Blue” concern over the turning of words was the furthest from anyone’s mind for sure as the sheer intensity of the band was the perfect backdrop for our master of ceremonies to wrangle us with a killer vocal. Not enough good things can be said about Josh Haywards effects driven guitar witchery. One could argue that he’s underrated, but that would be in a climate where people actually like to discuss guitar players and I guess that’s just for Dad’s nowadays.
Before the final encore, in a packed crowd With Guitars and company began chanting “Scarlet Fields” in case they were in the mood to take requests. It seemed to gain some traction with at least another audience member, when Josh looked to his singer and began to play the opening riff to said tune. They shared a bit of a smirk but continued on with the business of the day and left everyone with a fitting “Something to Remember Me By.” They must have been prepared or something.
A gut punch of a gig this was. It’s great to see 5 dudes in a room just bashing it out, engaging their audience and god forbid maybe look like they’re having fun doing it. A much needed reminder of how far high volume and arrogance can get you. 8.2/10
Ben Stephanus