The Horrors-"Strange House"

Well then, here we are. The Horrors' debut album proper, after an ep and several singles. You know most of the best songs here, "Jack The Ripper" and "Sheena Is A Parasite," namely, two songs that are fairly Screaming Lord Sutch by numbers, but not in a bad way, "Jack" being particularly good, with gang vocals, great guitar sounds, and an organist that's obtrusive but not obnoxious. So on to the rest of the album. Unfortunately, none of the new songs quite work, which I'll admit, is a bit of an understatement. To be frank, they annoy more often than anything else, organist Spider Webb (yes, seriously) is given a very prominent role on the album, and his frequently techno-ish frills distract from the songs more often than they do contribute to them, and this is unfortunate, because without him, the songs would frequently work quite well. "Draw Japan" and "Death At The Chapel," in particular, highlight guitarist Joshua Von Grimm, and he creates something rather impressive, a mixture of surf/noise work that can only be likened to Thurston Moore and Dick Dale getting into a guitar duel. It's not all good news on his front, however, as on "Gloves" and "A Train Roars" where he frequently comes close to nu-metal depths of idiocy with his instrument, drawing out repetitive, start-stop riffs that get under the skin in ways only the likes of Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson are wont to do.

One of the larger problems with the Horrors is the fact that lead singer Faris Rotter is simply not a very accomplished vocalist. While this is not usually a big problem in horror-rock music, it tends to grate when half of the album slips by without a notice of Faris doing much of anything other than shouting in an unobtrusive manner. In this genre, the singer is there to sell the band, to make his presence known, and to generally spout evil-sounding soliloquys that support the image. Faris does none of these things, just shouting one note, screaming every once in a while, perhaps, but generally, you just don't even notice he's there, and that's an unforgivable sin.

This album is not, strictly speaking, a bad album. It's just painfully mediocre. Too much of it passes by without notice, and the songs that do stand out do so more often by virtue of their faults than anything else, and that's a sad state of affairs, as the Horrors seem perfectly competent of doing something astounding. They've already got the attention of the press, which is more than any other genuinely goth band has done in years, but what they've chosen to do with it is disappointing. Here's hoping they come up with more next time.