Everything I felt about music changed just before the summer of 2006. I heard something that just reignited my love for music that is perceived as dark and a bit creepy. I’ve always loved bands such as Bauhaus, The Jesus And Mary Chain and Count Five. I never thought I’d find a band to give me the same feeling those acts did. I never thought it would exist again. At the time it was so groundbreaking, so there was really no reason it could ever happen again. Or could it?

What drew me to The Horrors was not the same reason most were. I did not care for how they dressed or how big their hair was. I was drawn into Joshua’s guitar playing. How could someone so you make a sound like this? How could someone who was practically my age play like one of the greats? I will never know, but I will ALWAYS be in utter awe of it. Tom, Rhys, Joe and Faris are ALL extremely talented guys, you cannot deny that at all. In time, I will probably have written about each member. Trust me, it’s going to happen. With Josh, it’s something else. When you see them all play on stage you can see that they feel exactly what they are playing. Faris doesn’t move like a man possessed on stage anymore, instead he stalks the stage like a panther. He’s so majestic with his moves.

Then you have Josh. He moves around in the completely opposite way Faris does. He loses himself not just in mind; but in body. He flails around so wonderfully. You are transfixed on the way he holds the guitar and how his long hair sticks to his face and in his eyes. Anyone else would probably fall over and not be able to play. Josh, however, is one of a kind.

Josh is EASILY the most exciting guitar player around. He has a degree in Physics, and you can tell the way he plays the guitar comes from more than a musical place. There is so much science going on in the way he plays. Just look at his pedal board. It is fucking CRAZY. His approach to playing is unlike anything I have ever heard before, and I listen to some weird and wonderful music.

The way Josh plays sends you into a whirlwind. It throws you off completely. It isn’t safe for me to go for a walk and listen to The Horrors because I just lose myself and fall into a trance.

The guitar on Mirror’s Image sounds like a train approaching. When Josh plays guitar, it doesn’t sound like he’s playing the guitar. He turns it into something else, something that changes in every single song. Although he has a different sound on every single song, Josh still maintains an eerie feel to it; something which cements what is The Horrors sound.

What fascinated me about Primary Colours was that Josh BUILT the pedals himself, he actually made them. It’s fucking mind-blowing. He’s the mad scientist of music. If you listen to a lot of bands now, yes some are quite good but The Horrors have something else. That something else that they posses comes from their approach to the music.

The first thing I bought to do with The Horrors was their EP in 2006. I remember skipping my uni lecture (first year doesn’t count) and going to buy this EP. I sat in my room and played it extremely loud. I knew nobody was in. I played it and I just lost myself in what I was hearing. I did exactly the same thing when Strange House was released, skipped a lecture just to go buy a record. Personally, I feel it was worth it.

Their sound on Strange House is what I suppose you would call Garage Rock. I hate giving bands a label, I can’t do it. It’s just wrong, but it does give off a Garage Rock vibe. It smacks you in the face; the songs are short and fucking brutal.

Move forward to 2009 and we are again blessed with a new record. Primary Colours was immediately declared as that year’s best album. I agree, fully. The songs were longer, the sound was less aggressive but it still had that raw edge. It still had a sound that no other could do apart from The Horrors. The guitar still sounded vicious yet it sent you off into a trance. What I’m trying to say is, Josh’s guitar skills just hypnotise you. That’s what he does, you listen to him and you cannot do anything else. You become so enthralled in what he is doing. You watch him sway whilst he is on stage or you just drift off into another world as you lay on your bed listening to the guitar dominate your mind.

The fact that Josh built his own pedals caused The Horrors to create a sound that nobody had ever heard before. The production was big, grand and full (think Joe Meek and Phil Spector.) All three of their albums have an indescribable sound. Recently Josh stated that it was Sonic Youth that inspired him to pick up a guitar, I can only hope that the generation below me listen to The Horrors and feel inspired to pick up an instrument and create something that hasn’t been heard before. There’s so much reverb and distortion in his guitar. An obsession with a feedback sound is evident, and with a lot of guitarists it can sound quite desperate. With Josh it sounds so clear and brutal. Oh and a wee bit fuzzy.

It’s only right that I mention this year’s release, Skying. Skying was produced by the band, and what is so amazing about this is that you can feel the freedom in the album. They haven’t made an album that you or I are proud of- they have made an album that they, as a band, are proud of. As much as I adore the brutal sounds on Strange House, the sound that they have created on Skying is stunning. It’s just a shame that people who know fuck all keep comparing it to others. It does NOT sound like Simple Minds at all, the fuck you on? Skying is masterpiece, a work of art. Just like all their records. If they can create an album like this, 3 albums into their career, then it is fairly obvious that The Horrors are a bad will be the ones to constantly evolve in ways you could never imagine with every record. Josh’s guitar sound on this record is not as fuzzy as it was on Primary Colours, on Skying it has a more delicate feel; not as intense. It still grabs you in ways you never thought a record could, but not in an aggressive manner.

John Peel once said, “I just want to hear something I haven’t heard before.” Something tells me that if he was still alive, The Horrors would probably be his favourite band around.