XL Recordings
The Horrors have always opted to go big rather than go home reaching for those rafters as they pump as much mascaraed rock ’n’ roll swagger as possible into each release. It’s an approach that’s worked well for the U.K. band throughout their near-decade run and it continues to work on their biggest-sounding album yet Luminous .
Marking the group’s fourth album and the first since 2011’s Skying Luminous brings with it many changes most noticeably a more streamlined electronic-tinted approach to their drama-packed Britpop. But Horrors gone EDM this is not; it’s a refinement — and improvement — on what came before it taking all their old trademarks and shaking them up for something new but familiar.
The gothy tendencies sky-reaching structures and ’80s Bunnymen romanticism are all still here. Now though it’s paired with a distinctly futuristic vibe as The Horrors flirt with sci-fi synth play shoegazing textures and bigger brighter guitar heroics. Proving he’s not a downer after all singer Faris Badwan’s mopey croon follows suit belting out melodies that are some of the most hook-laden and charming of his career.
No matter how you look at it Luminous is a step up for The Horrors once again changing your perception of what this band is and can be.
