The Horrors – Lout EP

❉ 2020’s gone and done for The Horrors with this utterly, unexpectedly, brilliant EP.

Look, Skying is a genuine 100% euphoric electro pop masterpiece. It took you to the sky and so, so much higher, and Faris & the gang kept the feeling going, and going, and going… until… LOUT!

There’s always been a touch of the dark within The Horrors happy. Be it their lyrics, or sudden drop of chord. Hell, their first album saw them saluted as the nu-metal nu-goth, and Lout, the opening track on this utterly, unexpectedly, brilliant EP not only reinforces the love of Hell, it tongues it. Hard.

It’s very new Industrial, loud, brash, a touch OTT, taking beats from NIN and Rammstein and grand for it. The howls of ‘Here comes the roll of the dice’ alongside lyrics that could be taken anyway from love to hate… alongside crashes and smashes and beats… Oooft. When whatever the new normal is hits, and The Horrors tour, this is their opener.

Then Org. Lyric-less. So I’m gonna try and explain it and if I get it right, you’ll be there, and you’ll know what I mean. So, if you remember the days of Rock Nights in nightclubs, and the smell, and the smile, and the leather & the studs? Yeah. Right. You’re bopping. I’m bopping. You’re gorgeous. I’m sweaty. It’s getting louder, l-o-I-d-e-r, LOUDER!!! Reverb, walls shaking, floors bouncing, sticky, the build, that absolute build of tunes, leather, make-up, goth eyes, piercings… and THEN!!! The Prodigy or variations thereupon drop and you don’t care who or what or where or why… ‘cause a metal rave hits, and dance culture comes together as one ‘cause that’s what music does! And the floor is fucking golden! Yes!

Then… Whiplash, and damn. I get it now. Ohhh… I get this EP. Ohhh. So, Lout, the pounding pre-night banger. Org, the club, the whatever takes your fancy. Whiplash is those thoughts, the fantasies, the highs and lows, the guilt and the smirk. It’s you stalking someone; it’s you being stalked. It’s pulling your hoodie over your ears so no-one can hear what you’re really listening to. It’s the buzz, crash, smash, beat of your brain having free reign – I shouldn’t be thinking that!!! Feels… good, though.

Lout’s an EP like nothing I’ve heard recently. Within music over the last twelve months I’ve heard hope, tenderness. Taylor Swift and Sault nailed the accepted mood, but with Lout, The Horrors have given an edge to the our reflections of Covid; they’ve taken it by the collar, danced with it, kissed it, and ditched it. Lout is a heavy night out, something we’re currently unable to do, but with this EP THEY did, and they took you… and you can’t wait to do it again.


❉ The Horrors – ‘Lout’ was released on 12 March 2021 by Wolf Tone Records. Get the ‘Lout’ EP now – https://TheHorrors.lnk.to/LoutID​

❉ Rob Bruce is a hyperbolic, shambolic, even sometimes symbolic Yorkshire rambling machine.

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