The Horrors - Strange House

Year – 2007

Country – UK

Label - Universal/Polydor

Genre – Rock, Goth, Pop, Indie, Surf Rock

The Horrors exploded onto the scene surrounded by NME hype and have their look so down, it makes you suspicious of their music, but with this debut; Strange House, The Horrors have proved you can look like characters left over after Tim Burton’s A Nightmare before Christmas and produce great music as well. Strange House opens with Screaming Lord Sutch's ‘Jack the Ripper’ which is followed by the excellent surf, goth, dirge of ‘Count In Fives’. The grinding organ and desperate vocals of ‘Count In Fives’ would even have had The Birthday Party shaking in their winkle pickers. Despite hating it the first time around (which seems to happen a lot with me and good music!) I now think ‘Sheena is a Parasite’, is one minute fiftyish of The Horrors finest, it even drew legendary music video maker Chris Cunningham out of hibernation to make his first music video in seven years and stars Samantha Morton. Check out the ‘Sheena is a Parasite’ video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZMrwZItOGE

This album may lack the depth and real world weirdness that other goth rockers have produced, but hey The Horrors are young and in a world that's currently saturated by Franz bands, emotionally retarded emo and limp-wristed, whiny, indie geek; Strange House is a breath of fresh air and I can’t wait for The Horrors to come to New Zealand. A Big Day Out possibility? I hope so.

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