I am still not convinced churches are the best places for rock concerts, I am not talking about the symbolic value of the place, of course not, I am talking about churches as venues for very loud rock concerts like the one I just saw on Thursday night: Toy and the Horrors. The place was resonating and amplifying the fuzz, it was as if the sound was refracting against the walls with no possible escape, and it was both deafening and frustrating,… plus it was damn hot! I was suffocating on my seat, with the sweat running along my back, making the long experience (from 9 to 1 am, one more time!) even more unbearable.
Not that the bands were unbearable, I didn’t know any of them, but I had decided to give them a try, because I had heard so much about the Horrors. First, was another English quintet called Toy, Britweek oblige. I have read that they are actually the Horrors’ protégés, they sound a bit like them too, so it was all making sense. They opened with a very long psychedelic shoegazing track without any vocals (‘Conductor’?) and continued with a series of songs mixing psychedelia, krautrock and some monotonous tone. First, I could not make sense of their music, may be it was because of the acoustic of the church that was making the sound muggy and trapped inside itself, may be it was me in a bad day, but I was not getting into it! The quintet, boys and girls, with their faces hidden behind their long hair all the time, gave us a long and loud set filled with hazy fuzz, shoegazing and a tunneling sound of continuous guitars and synth that didn’t captivate me. But there were more hooks as they progressed, even a more poppy sound at time, not that I necessarily needed hooks, but I needed something and the connection wasn’t really there… and it was obviously me because people loved them. I was still looking for some personality, something to reckon, the mildly morose vocals? The mild head banging? The urgency of some songs? They were wearing their hair like metal gods and proved they could krautrock hard, yes ‘Kopter’ and the last one, the title track of their album ‘Join the Dots’ were good, trashing the place and slowly burning a giant fire in the building, but My Bloody Valentine they were not.
The Horrors took the stage after 11 pm and I got immediately this strong 80s gothic new wave vibe, combined with frontman Faris Badwan’s foggy and monotonous vocals. Haven’t we heard this before? Sure, the deadpan delivery à la Ian Curtis mixed with some Morrissey’s lament chilling the atmosphere, when it must have been 100ºF out there, the neo-goth (if there is such a thing) outfits and synths, the pulsating green-blue lights to go with the resurrection of some post-punk psychedelia distortion… honestly I was in a bad day I swear, I stayed passive during the whole show, the music was blasting in the church and I was sweating on my seat, but nothing really happened. But again what do you do with that sort of music? It’s speed and haze, it’s dissonant guitars and great haircuts – if you are into that sort of gothic dos – but it’s certainly not dance floor material, it’s not really aggressive, not even pissed off enough – and I would understand pissed off – and it’s not even music to open your wrists with,… Instead, it’s an immense shoegaze surrounded by so much reverb and echo that you get lost after a few songs although it is not even strong enough to break these church windows! There were songs stretching for more than 12 minutes and not a lot action during these hypnotic ear-piercing atmospheric songs, heavy on synth and droney guitars,… may be I would have needed to smoke something to find some real appeal? Why did the Horrors leave me almost somewhat indifferent? The girl in front of me was filming the whole thing on her iPhone, the whole thing! She was going to have a cramp soon I am sure, but she was still doing it after an hour or so,… may be she was in love with Badwan? The guy sure had the right look and attitude for this kind of music, he was like the dark crow of the church and was bending over his mic as if the whole world was crashing his tall and thin stature. He was actually the only member of the band I really saw, as the other musicians were lost in this green-blue light and laser delirium.
They were some more vindictive parts, a bit Interpol-like, a bit Smiths-like and at this moment Badwan was not leaning over his mic anymore, and the English morose delivery was more prominent, but still buried in this noise rock and bathed in this blinding pulsating light show that made me close my eyes a few times. Still there were some hooks among this reverb-drenched slow-burning fuzz, and I am not sure where they were coming from, at this point I had lost count of the songs. But during ‘I See You’, ‘So Now You Know’, off their new album ‘Luminous’, they actually cut a bit the reverb, the effects, the surrounding and it sounded so much leaner, better, some moments of greatness among this great mess.
Setlist
Mirror’s Image (Primary Colours)
I can see through you (Skying)
Scarlet Fields (Primary Colours)
In and Out of Sight (Luminous)
I See You (Luminous)
Endless Blue (Skying)
Falling Star (Luminous)
So Now You Know (Luminous)
Sea within a Sea (Primary Colours)
Still Life (Skying)
Still moving further away (Skying)
