Tomorrow, The Horrors release their sixth studio album, ‘Night Life’. Out on Fiction Records, it will be their first release in eight years.
As the excitement builds, we look back at their illustrious past and pick our top ten favourite tracks:
10. Sheena Is A Parasite
The crucial moment from their vastly underrated debut album.
9. Machine
The colossal drums and distorted bass landed them somewhere between a fucked up Kraftwerk and BRMC. Leather-clad rebellion for outer-space adventures with the likes of Nine Inch Nails in tow.
8. Endless Blue
The Doors and Pink Floyd felt like natural fits for the band as they grew into their muso phase.
The only thing more organic for them was to erupt the stoner bliss into the chaotic nightmares of BRMC and Brian Jonestown Massacre.
7. New Ice Age
The degradation and violence of the first album are repackaged in a vast cinematic vision of despair that the outsiders can wear as a badge of honour.
Badwan’s vocals take on Brett Anderson’s more guttural moments alongside febrile atmosphere descending from the guitars.
6. Mirror’s Image
One of the all-time great album opener intros. Spell-binding gothic images of the British Seaside are distorted into their brand of Mary Chain dystopia. It is the perfect bridge from their garage beginnings to their masterpiece.
5. Still Life
Effortlessly brilliant!
For once, everything had its space to breathe, and the band emerged as rock classics. A song for any era or generation. A truly incredulous groove!
4. Scarlet Fields
Some records yearn for escape. This was the sound of the journey past the humble beginnings and into the fire of the unknown.
A joyride of reckless abandon into the eye of the storm!
3. Three Decades
Hauntingly desolate and vitally defiant, this was the sound of the band not only fearless but knowingly changing the world!
Their sordid garage rock was for dreamers, for fist-aloft believers in change!
2. Something to Remember Me By
Arguably their most complete single. Buoyant and incessant, it can drag you to the depths of hell or lift you to ecstatic release, dependent on life’s circumstances.
The aloofness of the Pet Shop Boys and Hot Chip’s synths and vocals was a glorious reinvention of everything this psychedelic powerhouse was and is. It kept them relevant in a decaying industry and opened them up to new generations. It was less a comeback and more a reminder of their greatness.
1. Who Can Say
It's up there with the greatest intros of all time. The thunderous bass and the soaring and tumbling seaside organs career out of control in one of the 00s' most distinctive moments of genius!
The languid drawl of Badwan's 60-girl group vocals cedes ground to the indomitable spirit of guitars.
Badwan's desperate howl in the closing stages is one of rock ‘n’ roll’s defining vocals. Has anything ever matched its power since?