Stalking Horses // Specters

The new melancholy kids on the block Stalking Horses bring you their debut album Specters, chockablock full of ambience, electronica, and a very British ‘dead-end street’ message. It’s a good effort at entering the well beaten track pioneered by the likes of Radiohead, and in doing so has that known and widely loved ability to exacerbate any underlying mental health issues you may have. There is a slight intrinsic padded cell-like quality to everything on this album, and along with the diversity in tempo and tone in each concessive track, it looks like schizophrenia may be on the cards. That being said, there is therapy provided by tracks like ‘Doctor a Heart’, which tells you that you’re not a bad person, but non-threateningly asks, “was it such a good idea after all?” I won’t bang on too much about how much Wu’s (ex This Et Al) vocals sound like Thom Yorke and his impressionists because it will get us nowhere – it’s like being attracted to someone because they resemble your ex, and then getting a reality check when an open mouthed kiss tastes like marmite (which both you and your ex hated of course). Even though there are many times during the course of the album when you get a bitter taste of déjà vu in your mouth, these crafty horses have put their stamp on a tried and tested style and do it unashamedly.

Willy Will Poulter