Yowsa! ‘Who Can Say’ erupts full-throttle with a fuzzed out, buzzing guitar racket that’s pure ‘Psychocandy’ era Jesus and Mary Chain. There are tom-toms being pummelled, for sure, but they’re half buried underneath the din. It’s toppy, but it’s also got tonal depth, not to mention cavernous reverb. Then a spiralling organ joins the overdriven blast, and brings a poppy psychedelic edge to the party, and in combination, it’s an all-out wall of noise. When the vocals arrive, I’m genuinely surprised that they’re delivering the lyrics ‘I never meant for you to get hurt / And how I tried / Oh how I tried’ instead of ‘We’re moving ’round and ’round / Can’t hear a single sound / And when I hit the ground / I heard a ringing sound / Uh-huh-huh.’
I’ve heard countless bands hyped as sounding like the Mary Chain – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Glasvegas to name but two – and have been spectacularly disappointed on every occasion. The Horrors, however, capture that blistering treble, all-out distortion and bowels-of-the-earth echo sound perfectly. Do they reinvent it? Not really, but then, that’s nothing to beef about, because ‘Who Can Say’ is a trashy burst of speaker-shredding noise that’s truly exhilarating.
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The song ends at around the 3.25 mark, but there’s a good ten seconds or so of howling feedback before the tumult dies down. It’ll be considerably longer before my tinitus diminishes.
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