Saturday, May 14, 2011

PeeP on PoP- The Horror The Horror


The Horror The Horror- Wilderness (2011- Tapete Records)
~by Gabe McBride
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It would be pretty easy to make the argument that indie rock can be broken up into pre and post Strokes periods. Like The Velvet Underground and The Ramones, The Strokes are a band that launched a thousand others and wound up having a bigger impact on other musicians than the culture as a whole. With their groovy dance oriented guitar thrum and elastic spastic rhythm section, The Horror The Horror have fit quite nicely into that post Is This It timeframe. 

Wilderness is album number three for Sweden’s The Horror The Horror, all of which have been released on Germany’s Tapete Records, and the band continues to barrel forward, if with a somewhat softened-around-the-edges sound. Where The Horror The Horror had previously bounced  around the room, they now traipse just a little more thoughtfully through the abode, which has its pluses and minuses. Lead singer Joel's(only bandmember’s first names are listed on their MySpace and Facebook pages, and Tapete Records website is all in German, so…) bemused, sardonic vocals may be the The Horror The Horror’s biggest asset, which is saying something , given the strength of the band’s output so far. The pace is more leisurely, the guitars are jazzier and the band expands the sound to include more keyboards on Wilderness, and while  doesn’t quite have the immediacy and snap of their self titled 2006 debut, it's hard to argue with the results here.

For Fans of: Phoenix, Field Music, Interpol


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