The Horrors @ El Rey, 6/18/07

Sweaty, frenzied kids clad in black are the preferred media of Farris Rotter. The Horrors frontman gets entire crowds to carry him, levitate him, and resort to just about any behavior reflective of one desperate for a musical laying on of hands. No smearing of shoe polish on my person or my camera this time. Instead, Farris performed a rather strange ritual of repeatedly walking in a tight circle which I took as his way of metaphysically dealing with the large dimensions of the stage (This being the fourth and largest show they have played in Los Angeles.) There was plenty of crowd-on-crowd action too. Bodies were bandied about with sheer abandon at each front, and stage invasions were met with little resistance from defeated security. The crowd came equally ready to take in the fervent performance of The Horrors and to release pent-up frustrations. I managed to destruct some of my own current aggravations as well: the crippling LA traffic, the hypocritical PC brainwashing of our nation, and the incessant iPhone hype generated by those same brainwashed first generation yuppies who will jump on The Horrors bandwagon two years from now. [BTW, if you forward this review to 100 friends you too can win a free iPhone.]

The Horrors debut album Strange House is available now at most decent record shops. [Are there any decent record shops still left? --Ed.] The band will play a string of festivals this summer in all corners of the world except the U.S.