Primary Colours (The Horrors album)

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Primary Colours
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Studio album by
the Horrors
Released27 April 2009
Recorded2008
Genre
Length45:28
LabelXL
Producer
The Horrors chronology
Strange House
(2007) 		Primary Colours
(2009) 		Skying
(2011)
Singles from Primary Colours
  1. "Sea Within a Sea"
    Released: 17 March 2009
  2. "Who Can Say"
    Released: 11 May 2009
  3. "Mirror's Image"
    Released: 14 August 2009
  4. "Whole New Way" / "Primary Colours"
    Released: 4 October 2009

Primary Colours is the second studio album by English rock band the Horrors. It was first released as a livestream on the NME website on 27 April 2009,[1] and received a wide release a week later.

Background

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The album was produced by Geoff Barrow of Portishead, Craig Silvey and music video director Chris Cunningham. Recording took place in Bath during the summer of 2008. The band signed with XL Recordings after leaving Loog Records in 2007. Regarding their time in the studio, band member Rhys Webb commented: "We had such an amazing time working on it, writing it and getting lost in it... we'd wander into the studio, and then never want to leave".[2] Webb and Tom Cowan, who had joined the band as keyboardist and bass guitarist respectively, switched instruments from this album onwards.

Prior to the album's release, the band released a cover of Suicide's "Shadazz" on a split single released by Blast First Petite as part of their tribute to Alan Vega in October 2008. On 17 March 2009, the eight-minute music video for "Sea Within a Sea", directed by former Jesus and Mary Chain bassist Douglas Hart, was posted on the band's website. The song was released as a digital download-only single, and full details of Primary Colours also surfaced.

In a preview article, music journalist Mike Diver commented that the album was "set to be one of the year's best" and that it was "wholly worth all the hype that's attracted to its unexpected brilliance."[3]

Release

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Primary Colours was released by XL on 4 May 2009, with a livestream on the NME website a week prior.[1] The album charted on the UK Albums Chart at No. 25.[4]

Following the album's release, the single "Who Can Say" was released on 7" vinyl.[5]

In 2009, it was awarded a silver certification from the Independent Music Companies Association, which indicated sales of at least 30,000 copies throughout Europe.[6]

Reception

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Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
AnyDecentMusic?7.6/10[7]
Metacritic82/100[8]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusicStarStarStarStarFile:Star empty.svg[9]
The A.V. ClubB+[10]
The Daily TelegraphStarStarStarStarFile:Star empty.svg[11]
The GuardianStarStarStarStarFile:Star empty.svg[12]
MojoStarStarStarStarFile:Star empty.svg[13]
NME9/10[14]
Pitchfork7.6/10[15]
QStarStarStarStarFile:Star empty.svg[16]
Rolling StoneStarStarStarHalf starFile:Star empty.svg[17]
Spin6/10[18]

According to the review aggregator website Metacritic, the record was met with "universal critical acclaim", receiving a normalised score of 82% based on 19 reviews.[8]

On 21 July 2009, the album was announced as one of the twelve albums shortlisted for the year's Mercury Prize award, but it ultimately lost to Speech Debelle's album, Speech Therapy.[19]

Fact said that the album struck "a rich vein of brawny but windswept psychedelic rock."[20] BBC Music positively compared the album to the work of My Bloody Valentine, Loop and Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft.[21]

Pitchfork emphasized the band's change in style, noting their "shoegazer makeover" and concluding that the album succeeded in "transforming gothic gloom into psychedelic drone".[15]

Retrospectively calling the album "the triple point where goth, post-punk, and shoegaze met", AllMusic concluded: "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".[9]

Accolades

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Publication Country Accolade Year Rank
Drowned in Sound UK Top 50 Albums of 2009 2009 #13[citation needed]
The Fly UK Best Albums of 2009 2009 #5[citation needed]
Mojo UK Top Albums of 2009 2009 #4[citation needed]
NME UK Top albums of 2009 2009 #1[citation needed]
Planet Sound UK Top albums of 2009 2009 #3[citation needed]
Q UK Top albums of 2009 2009 #39[citation needed]
The Quietus UK Top albums of 2009 2009 #2[citation needed]
Clash UK Top albums of 2009 2009 #7[citation needed]
NME UK 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 2013 #218[citation needed]
NME UK Best Albums of the 00s 2009 #68[citation needed]
The Times UK Top 100 Albums of the 2000s 2009 #81[citation needed]
Beats Per Minute USA The 130 Best Albums of the Last Five Years 2013 #72[citation needed]
Clash UK The Top 100 Albums of Clash's Lifetime 2014 #36[citation needed]
The Quietus UK The Top 100 Albums of the Quietus' Existence 2018 #99[22]

Legacy

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To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the album's release, the Horrors played the album in full at a one-off show at The Royal Albert Hall on 9 May 2019.[23]

In a retrospective 2019 article about the album, Loud and Quiet argued "this exploratory, psychedelic record... would act as an antiseptic to the post-Libertines landfill still dominant in 2009. Its role in ushering in a British psych revival has been under acknowledged, too."[24]

Track listing

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All songs written and arranged by the Horrors.

  1. "Mirror's Image" – 4:50
  2. "Three Decades" – 2:50
  3. "Who Can Say" – 3:41
  4. "Do You Remember" – 3:28
  5. "New Ice Age" – 4:25
  6. "Scarlet Fields" – 4:43
  7. "I Only Think of You" – 7:07
  8. "I Can't Control Myself" – 3:28
  9. "Primary Colours" – 3:02
  10. "Sea Within a Sea" – 8:00

Japan-only bonus tracks:

  1. "You Could Never Tell" – 3:30
  2. "Whole New Way" – 4:58
  3. "Sea Within a Sea" (enhanced video) – 8:24

Personnel

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  • The Horrors – production, mixing, engineering
  • Craig Silvey – production, mixing, engineering
  • Geoff Barrow – production, mixing, engineering
  • Chris Cunningham – production on tracks 2 and 9
  • Ciaran O'Shea – sleeve artwork

Charts

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Chart Provider(s) Peak
position
Belgium Walloon Albums Chart IFPI 40[25]
France Physical Albums Chart SNEP 141[25]
UK Albums Chart BPI 25[4]

References

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