Faith No More reported to be playing London & Scotland warm up gigs.

Faith No More

Along with probably what is one of the worst kept secrets of this festival season (FNM at Reading/Leeds), rumours are currently circulating that the rock/metal giants will be playing pre-festival shows in London & Scotland. If the rumours are confirmed, this is good news for fans who don’t want to shell out a fortune to see them at Download (along with other ‘greats’ such as Limp Bizkit and Korn).

The band will reportedly be playing London’s Brixton Academy and an as yet unnamed venue in Scotland around 10-11th June. There is as yet no news on ticket prices and if/when they go on sale. What’s especially surprising about this rumour is that Download were pretty insistent on letting us know their festival will be the bands only UK gig this year.

More news as soon as we hear it.

The Horrors – Primary Colours

Expecting a good Horrors album would be a bit like expecting a piece of quality investigative journalism in the Daily Mail, or a 48 page finance news pullout in the Morning Star. As far as I was concerned they were a total write-off, a one-dimensional cartoon punk mess of a band. Yet somehow they seem to have risen up as the indie equivalent of Peter Crouch – after spending so long slagging them off, I’m going to have to accept that they might really have something after all.

Primary Colours is an urgent, visceral album, with its influences taken from krautrock, shoegaze and the darker edges of late 70s/early 80s post punk, along with a billion other things that I’m nowhere near well-listened enough to have heard of. There’s plenty of melody and colour in there too, where other bands have borrowed from the same sources and come up with nothing but gloom.

Trouble is, this now raises the bar as far as musical surprises go. Susan Boyle recorded by Steve Albini, anyone? Make it happen!

8/10