Night Life find The Horrors refreshed and invigorated

To see their sixth long-player Night Life coming to fruition would rightly come as a surprise to some. The two EPs that preceded the record took their pointers from the industrial sounds of 2017s V – particularly opener, "Machine". Reactions were mixed with the hard-techno-dressed-in-tight-leather-era in the form of Lout and Against The Blade in 2021 – and with side hustles becoming the main focus for band members – it wouldn’t have been foolish to assume the band was done.

But here we are, with a new iteration of The Horrors – singer Faris Badwan and bass player Rhys Webb remain at its core; Tom Furse (keys) and Joe Spurgen (drums) are gone, with original guitarist Joshua Hayward contributing some guitar to the album. Nevertheless,The Horrors in 2025 are now are a band invigorated, with kill AND cure mode unlocked.

Enlisting Amelia Kidd of Glaswegian four-piece The Ninth Wave has proven to be the masterstroke; Night Life is an insular and claustrophobic listen, with Kidd coldwave leanings more than compensating for the loss of Furse and Hayward.

There are still very Horrorsian sounds here: the baggy shuffling beats and B-Movie synths on "Ariel" continues their knack for brilliant album openers; "The Silence That Remains" and "More Than Life" are swaggering shoegaze epics which play to the bands strength, and in "Silent Sister" we have an ugly prowling piece of industrial goth rock, the gnarliest the band have been for a long time with Badwan in full Lugosi mode. It’s the best track here, and one of the finest within their catalogue.

Elsewhere the flavour is end-of-the-world synths and dystopian imagery thanks to the pen of Badwan. The drowsy electronica of "The Feeling is Gone" wouldn't sound out of place on a Tricky album, while "When The Rhythm Breaks" and seven-minute epic "Lotus Eater" are euphoric forays into kosmische techno and showcase the same harsh beauty nailed by FKA Twigs on EUSEXUA. Album closer "L.A Runway" scales back the experimentation and picks up the band's Simple Mind leanings with triumphant results.

While a reboot of the band The Horrors still have a knack for drowsy gothery and a shoegaze pop gems, with nods to the soundtrack work of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross alongside the harsher end of Gary Numan’s ‘80s output. Night Life is a dark synth album from a band turning away from the big expansive sounds of the past to explore both the desolation and pleasures when light turns to dark, and their best album since Skying.