Night Life

As a (black) whole, ‘Night Life’ is an impressive return from a band that has taken a long time to metamorphose into this fabulous current form.

Within ominously booming coordinates often evoking Hans Zimmer-style soundtracking, dark-pop miracles reliably happen. [May 2025, p.84]

This might not be it [a landmark record], but by god does it sound like it wants to be at points towards the end. Night Life is very, very good.

Night Life is a dark synth album from a band turning away from the big expansive sounds of the past to explore both the desolation and pleasures when light turns to dark, and their best album since Skying.

The band embody the peculiar feeling of in-betweenness – the post-apocalyptic experience of being the only person awake – in a way that feels true to their history whilst scaling new heights.

Faris Badwan’s cool vocal command - something which belies the fact that lyrically, ‘Night Life’ is unafraid to reckon with the violence and chaos of the present moment. He’s done some of the finest writing of his career here, on a record where The Horrors burn the midnight oil with a new intensity.

The album is a grower. There’s few songs here that resembles each other, as the band cut it at nine tracks. The sonic interests of the past albums are clearly visible – it could even be argued that this is the best sounding album the group has produced in the 14 years since Skying. There’s a rich compositional density in the individual elements and production values, which build on each other to form complex art pieces.

It's unquestionably a more electronic record, but the band show that they still know how to make a racket. [Mar 2025, p.33]

Night Life is enigmatic, entertaining "dark" rock which will thrill those too young to be familiar with the work of Psychedelic Furs, Sisters of Mercy or Depeche Mode. [Apr 2025, p.102]