THE HORRORS
SKYING

The Horrors have done a few interesting things with Skying, their latest romp. The band integrates a few of modern alternative quirks quite well with an appealing and even-tempered sound on top; percussive oddities give way to pleasant choruses, and crunchy synths melt into reverberated hooks. Skying is a concentrated reduction of a plethora of stadium rock, stripping out the extraneous bits of bloated fluff and focusing on what makes a good, loud, reverb-soaked alt-rock track (and ultimately an entire album of such) appealing. Moving well beyond their pre-EP buzz and through the rough edges of their youth, The Horrors have found a new maturity on their third LP, the one worthy of their "record collector" rock label.

The other oddities of The Horrors coalesce into a pretty standard Brit-rock wash of sound. Nothing too extreme is lurking in the shadows of their noisey constructions, and perhaps that's a good thing for those seeking an even-tempered romp in fringe rock and roll. But for the more adventurous snobs, the spazzed-out chill wavers and freaky blip-rock maniacs, this journey won't quite reignite all the synapses.

But it's a journey worth taking. Tracks like "Moving Further Away" really sizzle, and that's the true meat of Horrors; their riffs are best when kinetic enough to move the toes and the heads of even the most stationary listeners. Like all the best bits of Muse's neo-opus mixed with Coldplay's beefy hooks, Horrors are an inverted synthesis of experimentation and alt-rock. Two-chord opening riffs are so often marred by the regular sounds of distorted guitar that the truly original motif is a rare thing these days. Horrors have managed to craft a sound that sounds both fresh and familiar, with synthetic parts that don't sound overused or trite. Their frequent homages to the tentpoles of British rock and roll have subsided in a way to highlight their own unique strengths, and discovering them is the joy of Skying.