Primary Colours

The Horrors - Primary Colours
Critic Score
Based on 28 reviews
2009 Ratings: #65 / 923
Year End Rank: #16
User Score
Based on 271 ratings
2009 Rank: #87
Liked by 22 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
God Is in the TV
It really doesn't matter now what the NME says, what their haircuts look like, how daft their pseudonyms. When you've created a modern classic all that matters is the music. Leave your preconceptions at the door.
100
No Ripcord

Though definitely more of an ode to rock’s past than its present, Primary Colours reflects the necessity for inspiration.

90
Drowned in Sound

The surprise appearance of The Horrors' new single, 'Sea Within a Sea', has come as quite a shock to the vast majority who dismissed the band during their initial hype-fuelled rise. Where screaming excess and over the top clobber once held sway, the single’s video reveals a group of sombre aesthetes brooding over their instruments as they coolly erect an epic, eight minute wall of sound that slaps a motorik pulse onto the early 4AD catalogue, before slowly immersing it into a bubbling pool of kosmiche noise.

90
musicOMH
It’s almost the hype-cycle in reverse. Set to suck, rather than blow. There was nothing to suggest that The Horrors had this in them, but the manner and the fashion in which it exceeds expectations serve to amplify just how good it is.
90
NME

Time will tell how ‘Primary Colours’ stands up to the likes of ‘Loveless’ or ‘Psychocandy’, but right now, this feels like the British art-rock album we’ve all been waiting for.

87
The Line of Best Fit

Primary Colours is the most satisfying surprise that 2009 is likely to deliver.

83
A.V. Club
The Horrors have gone from terrifying to haunting, an effect that lingers far longer.
80
The Guardian
Even at their most ordinary, they now sound like the Psychedelic Furs featuring Kevin Shields, which is no bad thing. But the biggest surprise, given their prior commitment to brevity, is how fully they inhabit the longer songs.
80
The Irish Times

Primary Colours is a dazzling, swaggering piece of work.

80
Q Magazine
It seems they've raised their game in hallucinogenic style.
80
Record Collector
Unfortunately a few of the succinct songs feel like eight-minute dirges, with only Mirror Image and Three Decades standing out after repeated listening. This could have been a five-star record but there’s not nearly enough true experimentation to wholly satisfy curious ears.
80
Spectrum Culture

A listen to Primary Colors is more than music – it’s an experience. And, with the extreme exception of overtiredness, it is sure to boil your blood. In a good way, of course.

80
Prefix

The Horrors will still have a hard time winning over new converts, but they’ve done a magnificent job of confounding expectations with this release.

80
The Telegraph
The results – understated epics awash with psychedelic guitars, alien keyboards and cleverly nuanced electronic effects – are attractively moody and ambitious.
80
Mojo
The Horrors are operating at a way more advanced level, dragging rock, feedback-drenched, electronic and electrifying, into a new decade.
80
Uncut
The quintet's transformation from schlocky garage urchins to ambassadors of thrilling new-wave can largely be attributed to Portishead's Geoff Barrow, who, alongside Chris Cunningham, produced "Primary Colours," uncovering a formidable band beneath the haircuts.
80
The Skinny

The Horrors may still look like a noxious gang of Camden attention-seekers, but the thrilling bombast of Primary Colours will ensure we listen as well.

80
The 405

Primary Colours is not by any means a classic but it tells us not to light the torches. So let us put down our pitchforks and scrap any preconceived ideas we had about chasing these curious monsters out of town.

80
AllMusic

As bold and listenable as it is, Primary Colours is occasionally scattered, giving the impression that the band is trying on different sounds for size -- although the fact that most of it works so well is actually more surprising than how different it is from their earlier work.

76
Pitchfork

The Horrors' shoegazer makeover aside, the real story here is Badwan's growing confidence as a singer, and his willingness to sound more scared than scary. Primary Colours loses its radiance when he reverts back to bogeyman type.

75
Beats Per Minute

Primary Colours is definitely a positive change for the Horrors, and while it has some amazingly endearing moments, it lingers in areas.

71
Coke Machine Glow

The Horrors’ two-album evolution is very nearly a condensed study of how punk becomes post-punk, or really how rock and roll manages time and time again to transcend its origins and become Art. 

70
Rolling Stone
Against all odds, and for no earthly reason at all, these London goth-punk fashion plates suddenly sound as demented and hungry as they look.
70
Under the Radar

Primary Colours doesn't hit its stride until the very end ... with the title track and the 'Sea Within A Sea,' where at times it feels like there is no sight of land.

60
SPIN
The result boasts an admirably moody menace, but lacks the debut’s darkly comic drive.
60
Evening Standard
The unusually uplifting synth line of Who Can Say might even put you in the rare position of humming The Horrors.
50
PopMatters

Back in 2006, when they stormed the scene, the Horrors seemed more like the goth-rock version of Spinal Tap than an actual band. Decked-out in black drainpipes, with a guitarist named Joshua von Grimm and a cover of Screaming Lord Sutch’s “Jack the Ripper”, the Horrors managed to alienate as many fans as they won over. Their 2007 debut, Strange House, was a mix of rowdy, Stooges-style punk and gothic ambiance, but it ultimately fell flat

; perhaps because it all seemed like one big joke. And that’s enough for a single, an EP maybe, but a full-on album? The hype burnt out so fast there wasn’t even time for smoke.

50
FACT Magazine

Primary Colours falls harder than it deserves and the Horrors remain a pretentious, vacuous proposition: landfill indie rock with some synth burbles. Big fuckin’ whoop.

SnowyFighter
77

MAKE ME SCARED GOD DAMN

As much as I’m disappointed that I didn’t get spooked, this is pretty cool. Very post punky that takes inspiration from Joy Division and New Order, but also still kinda stands on its own because of the Shoegazey elements. The song that really floored me was New Ice Age. Bruh that build and drop is fucking incredible. That sent me back into my seat. The coolest fucking vibe of a song. I also thought Scarlet Fields, Mirrors Image, and Who Can Say are all very ... read more

JayCrackers
84

Ditching the more garage punk sound for a shoegaze post-punk one which fits better with their ties to 80's Gothic rock was a smart move from The Horrors. For a nocturnal, psychedelic 45 minutes of pure dark and dense atmosphere and with easily their best song they ever put out Sea Within a Sea, Primary Colours is something special

Track Review

Mirror's Image 9/10
Three Decades 7.5/10.
Who Can Say 9/10
Do You Remember 8.5/10.
New Ice Age 8/10
Scarlet Fields 8.5/10.
I Only Think of You ... read more

grnhll
74

Good mix between post-punk and shoegaze. Not really memorable, but not bad either.

Tsmoes93
71

Revival of Joy Division, The Cure mixed with a shoegaze sound. Even the front album cover looks like a The Cure cover

mikehermida
88

I first heard this LP during lockdown in a Tim Burgess listen a long (a practise I have continued with my brother). I immediately fell in love with this record, its maudlin angst filled aesthetic fitting perfectly with the crappy place I was in at the time.

Now, in a much healthier place, I still love this record and always will.

Essential Track - Sea Within A Sea

HYENA
100

'Primary Colours' by The Horrors is, up to this moment, my last definitive rock classic record. After this one, no money was used to buy rock albums for my vinyl collection. This is an absolute work of art.

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