REVIEWSThe Horrors, ‘Strange House’

4

• SPIN Rating:4 of 10

• • Listen:

    Spotify

Label: Stolen Transmission

If the Horrors had crafted an album's worth of creepy goth-garage tracks that matched the vampish ferocity of single "Gloves" and riotous crowd-pleaser "Sheena Is a Parasite," these young Brits really could've blown the cobwebs off the Cramps' handbook. But Faris Rotter's vocals lack the charisma to give the group a true campy flamboyance, and the insistent, haunted-basement organ riffs scarcely vary. Lyrics about bloodthirsty lovers and serial killers are ghoulish diversions, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs' guitarist Nick Zinner drops by, but the Horrors are too shackled by kitsch to scare life into such creaky punk posturing.

Now Watch This:"Sheena Is a Parasite"

BUY: