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A Magazine for Sheffield

Horrid LP

“Stanley is always trying to get in a word alone with an extremely intelligent young thief seeking revenge over the death of his brother. Yet despite trying to keep his swashbuckling to a minimum the banker transforms into a green skinned, zoot suited fireball determined that Rocky be given the same biker gang chances after his dog is transformed into a manic super-hero when she wears a mysterious mask.”

How is that for a press release? Not bad. Not usual. There is certainly something dark and strange about this lot and, apart from that terse press release, little is clear. When they play live they wear sacks over their heads with eyeholes cut. They seem to be somewhere else, almost like a farmer’s version of The Residents, which is not a bad thing when you play music like this. This is space rock. The more I listen to it, I can almost hear an aboriginal influence with the use of drones and shapeless and sparse vocal snatches that creep in and out of the tidal arrangements. There is something of early Can or Faust about them, but also a more industrial aspect, like Test Department. Either way, they have defined their sound and are mining that seam with élan.

With the right lights, Horrid would make a great live show. At times it seems they are trying to summon up some godhead figure, adorning their sparse record art with mystic symbols. This is great ritual music, something dark that we will try to understand but cannot. I do not know who your god is, but this is music for the celebration of the darker and more fun things of life. There are some dangerous minds at work here. Are they cult nihilists? Who cares? What I like is that BBC 6 would never play this.