Bartees Strange – ‘Horror’ album review: want ideas, here’s all of them
THE SKINNY: After departing Stay Inside, the post-hardcore outfit that he co-founded, in 2018, Bartees Strange has found himself on a slow but steady rise in popularity for delivering a hybridised brand of indie rock. While these attempts at merging together all of the influences he has accumulated over the years have been valiant and have earned him fans, the Oklahoma songwriter unfortunately still feels as though he’s unable to fit anywhere.
His third album, Horror, sees him lay all of his cards on the table in a soul-baring record that fuses together an even broader range of styles than employed on Live Forever and Farm to Table, and while the desperation to belong somewhere is evident throughout, Strange perhaps stretches himself a little too far in his efforts to impress in a variety of ways.
Themes of despair, isolation, and determination to bounce back stronger crop up throughout the record, and lyrically, every song gels with the last without seeming at odds with the rest of the tracklist. However, Strange’s constant genre-hopping, while done with an earnest love of the styles he attempts, doesn’t always feel like a comfortable fit.
Given his past involvement in the post-hardcore scene, the moments of aggression and bombastic riffs come naturally to him, but the bold ventures into neo-soul, soft rock and abstract hip-hop also pay off when they’re brought to the fore. Having these four genres combined ought to be enough to show off his flexibility and diverse tastes, but the biggest issue with Horror is that Strange is not content staying in these lanes – he’s determined to weave in far more than that.
Keeping an open mind and wanting to explore new musical horizons is, of course, not a bad thing by any measure, but cohesion between songs on an album is also vital to it being enjoyable as a whole. Horror doesn’t fall completely flat as a result of its skittish approach but is prevented from being its strongest self due to this lack of focus, and you have to wonder how good a Strange record would be if it tried half as many ideas.
For fans of: Dramatically entering every room, devoting hours to rifling through others’ record collections, being loved.
A concluding comment from David Cronenberg: “It’s no body horror, but I admire how much he mutates the genres he’s working with.”
Horror track by track:
Release Date: February 14th | Producer: Bartees Strange, et al | Label: 4AD
‘Too Much’: Part-lovesick indie rock bop and part-defiant alternative hip-hop banger, Strange outlines the themes of feeling as though he’s not good enough for someone, and then conquers those fears with a statement of self-assuredness as he tries to silence his internal struggles. [4/5]
‘Hit It Quit It’: Strange’s versatility is on full display, as the second song merges two completely different genres to its predecessor. Morphing from buttery-smooth funk to overblown hard rock riffs at will, it takes a lot of guts to have attempted so much within the opening two tracks, and a hell of a lot of skill to pull it off. [4.5/5]
‘Sober’: Aside from a sudden burst of overdrive in the chorus and some shredding towards the end, the majority of this song takes on more of a soft rock lilt. Within it, he talks about turning to substances to deal with a relationship that’s seemingly on the rocks, delivering the powerful repeating line “that’s why it’s hard to be sober.” [3.5/5]
‘Baltimore’: The tempo slows right down for this contemplative diversion into Americana, but there’s unfortunately not quite as much to latch onto as he showcases yet another side to his influences. [3/5]
‘Lie 95’: As Strange searches high and low for love in all its forms, this track is the poppiest things have gotten on the album so far, and its universally relatable lyrics about yearning for a sense of community, tenderness and embrace is something all listeners can probably relate to. [3.5/5]
‘Wants Needs’: There’s a fear and anger bubbling beneath this scrappy and explosive guitar-led track, and he expresses his fears of not being taken seriously for his art due to him being a black man in a white-dominated sphere. The constant pushing of different sides to his sound is him crying out to be noticed as more than just an outlier in his scene, but a genuine force to be reckoned with. [4/5]
‘Lovers’: We’re hitting the dancefloor now, but this sad house beat isn’t getting me up to dance. Considering how many strings he’s added to his bow throughout the record, it’s a shame but also understandable that not all of them are a good fit. [3/5]
‘Doomsday Buttercup’: Every element of this track feels as though it’s trying to be as subtle as possible in order to add to the rawness, but what it really needs is one of the elements to rise to the top and dominate the track. A great song, but one that had potential to be more. [3.5/5]
‘17’: The themes of ‘Wants Needs’ return as he reflects on past experiences as a teenager where he felt a sense of isolation. The quiet-loud dynamic shift is Strange coming out of his shell to scream at all the naysayers and prove to them that he does deserve to be noticed and is no longer the meek outside he once was. [4/5]
‘Loop Defenders’: Strange tackles racial prejudice in a more general sense on this track rather than relating it to his struggles as an artist, and once again we jump from trip-hop to crunchy rock riffs and back again in an instant. [4/5]
‘Norf Gun’: Possibly influenced by UK garage, this uptempo electronic and dance-oriented sound works better than the more reserved approach taken on ‘Lovers’. The over-the-top chorus line of “I just fucked your bitch the other night” may well be tongue-in-cheek, but it makes for one hell of a memorable hook. [4/5]
‘Backseat Banton’: This might be a brilliant closer for some listeners, and we get to see yet another influence of Strange’s on show before the curtains are drawn, but this call back to 2000s pop-punk and emo rarely does it for me. It’ll be a huge hit of nostalgia for others, though. [3/5]
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