It is a stereotypical – almost – comment that Wales is the European home of downbeat electronic music that can portray both the dance floor and the heart as places devoid of the commodity known as hope. Certainly, H O R S E S seem keen to overdose on robotic despair with the five songs on their self-titled EP being convincingly and professionally spray painted in the musical equivalent of deep dark grey.
The analogue style synth sounds that underpin these five songs are minimalist in their presentation as if the essence of the cold war concrete of Eastern Europe had been transported through time and dumped into the southern reaches of Wales just to ensure the accuracy of the sonic representation of a cloud of doom. Top everything off with the kind of atonal vocals that could only be used with the poetry of broken dreams and even the most determined attempt at a sugar rush will fail to get you out of that faded black ensemble that your ears have hypnotised you into wearing.
Stare therefore at the moon and wonder why its light shines around you rather than upon you and then dance the danse macabre to the bleak emptiness of “Everybody” or “Saw You Again”. Robots need neither freedom nor love until, one day, they do.