irrespective of the subject...

Have some tracks by The Horrors. I hope they won't mind, they're presently streaming on their MySpace page but I always think it's nice to have these things to carry around with you, away from the computer.

Well, I say nice. The Horrors (from that cradle of punk Southend-on-Sea) are creeping around the blogosphere at present on the back of the video they've made and released for Sheena is a Parasite. The story goes that one Chris Cunningham esq. spotted the band on MySpace and thought they might like him to do a video for them. Mr Cunningham is quite a well-known music video director, most notably perhaps for his work with Aphex Twin Richard James, whose Come to Daddy and Windowlicker videos are delightful homages to nastiness. And the new video for Sheena is a Parasite will not disappoint Cunningham's fans. We'll come back to that in a minute.

In general The Horrors seek to meet a demand for old skool punk that hasn't really been satisfied since before The Stranglers dropped the word "Guildford" from their name (and the obvious debt to The Ramones is hardly accidental). They make short, shouty songs to simple melodies on raw instruments (though they are strangely particular about referring to Tomethy Furse's Danelectro Longhorn bass - he's obviously very proud of it). In short bursts, which these are, the sound of The Horrors is very satisfying, though I don't know if I could sit down for an evening in my favourite armchair with a glass of red wine and listen to a whole album. It's too early to say if the novelty will last; I prefer my hardcore to be followed, oh, I don't know, perhaps by some 1960s Latin Jazz. It's all in the contrast. For now, though, the novelty is fresh.

The video does, if nothing else, show that The Horrors aren't up for the 1970s visual stereotype. In fact, Furse, Coffin Joe (drums) and Spider Webb (keys) look a little as if someone picked up some chewing gum spat out by Clint Boon in 1989, extracted the DNA from the spit and had a bit of fun experimenting with cloning. It's a scary video, as Cunningham surely intended, and that's not bad for about one minute and fifty seconds of screen time. You get a good feel for what The Horrors are about pretty quickly, and you can choose for yourself what it is about it that's so disturbing. Obviously for some it will be the sight of the contents of a butcher's dustbin bursting out of poor Samantha Morton's torso. For me, to be quite frank, it's that fucking bass player Furse again.

See the video in full at Do Copenhagen
The Horrors play at London's 100 Club on 25 July
The DVD of Sheena is a Parasite will be released on Loog records on 31 July
The 7" single is already long since sold out; copies occasionally come up on eBay and Amazon
Oh, and Sheena is a parasite turns up on SAS Radio podcast #11, out Monday. Consider yourselves privileged.

The Horrors - Sheena is a Parasite
The Horrors - Count in Fives
The Horrors - Jack the Ripper