LIVE REVIEW: The Horrors @ Rough Trade Liverpool

As The Horrors take to the stage at Liverpool's 300 cap Rough Trade venue, their first notes feel like the awakening of an ancient life form. The drum beats pump waves of synth around the venue’s arteries, the opening line of 'Mirror’s Image' rears its head towards the audience, already jumping down the front, and the creature is off. 

'The Silence That Remains' captures echoes that have been reverberating around caves for thousands of years, giving a voice to this beast, a haunting, ominous voice that creeps through the vocal cords and spills over jagged teeth. You get the feeling that this creature, after its stretch of time in ancient caves, spent the 70s with Joy Division. 

Or perhaps Kraftwerk, as the set leans into a more electronic drone with 'Still Life'. Faris Badwan hangs off of his microphone, half rock-star, half preacher, adding space-y vocals over sun drenched synths. Dense layers of sound swirl around the room, blanketing the entity that Badwan is creating in thick layers of 70s style fur. 

The set ends with 'Lotus Eater', a track from their latest album 'Night Life'. This is a final synth-driven surge towards the end of the night, a sound that is immediate, like a strobe that is simultaneously rushing the evening forward and stopping time altogether. 

The end comes abruptly, with no announcement, perhaps because the music has taken on a life of its own, escaping through the signing booth, whirling down the staircase and leaping through the streets of Liverpool. Maybe this will make people more believable when they say they were at this gig. Perhaps they found the throbbing basslines in the corners of clubs, and the static-y distortion lurking under discarded chip boxes. The Horrors have certainly made their mark on the city, one that won’t disappear any time soon.