From the depths The Horror reappear, with album in tow BY SAM PFEIFLE

Looking back through the "Beat Report" files, you might chance upon a cover story we did in April of 2001, penned by Sherie Dyer. It was on a show called "The Haunting of the State," pulling together six of Portland’s heaviest (but in an artistic way) acts to play Portland’s premier venue: Colostomy, Swampwitch Revival, Eggbot, Twitchboy, smacdada, and the Horror (Broken Clown bagged out with a scheduling conflict). It was the brainchild of the Horror’s Ricky Boy Floyd and Wally Wentzel, and even featured art-making tables and the showing of a film Floyd had put together.

Maybe, for that show, which looked a little sparse in the State, even with about 400 people coming through the doors, ambition outstripped reality. The audience for artful heavy music isn’t what it was in, say, 1971, when Sabbath released Paranoid. Today, folks like their heavy music pretty poppy (on the one hand) or downright dark, fast, and evil like the Hatebreed/mosh-pit crowd.

Maybe it’s coincidence, or the normal course of things, that Twitchboy, Swampwitch, Colostomy, and Broken Clown have all dissolved since that day, just two and half years ago. But the Horror definitely went into hibernation soon after that, and many wondered if Ricky Boy Floyd’s dark musical genius had taken its run at Portland and become tired of the mixed reception.

Well, he’s back, and so are the Horror, and if y’all don’t pay attention this time, you’ll be the sorts of fools who are suffered lightly around these parts. The band have two shows coming up this week, and they’ve got an album, Music to Float to Hell By, that should be ready to drop in late January. They’ve also got their drummer back; Brian Higgins, late of Rocktopus, has rejoined the band, to complete a line-up that features Wentzel on guitars (primarily) and keyboards, Sean Libby on the bass, Erik Winter on keys and bass pedals, and Floyd belting out sometimes freakishly angry, sometimes just-plain-operatic lead vocals.

If Float to Hell is any indication, the Horror are not only revived, but inspired. The album is a wonderful amalgam of studio trickery and live passion, melding elements of metal, trance, drum and bass, pop, and rock into an orchestral vision that’s as much classical as contemporary.

I don’t make that claim lightly. Check out "Dysthymia," the baroque all-piano piece that closes the album. Floyd updates his composition, though, with snippets of children playing and birds chirping in the background, effecting the last waltz of a circus clown, one disillusioned by all the fucking snotty kids nowadays. It also sounds like it should be played, Phantom of the Opera–style, on the State Theatre’s organ. Walking in on that scene would give you shivers that would be tough to shake.

Most of the album, however, is more like "Computerror," which features progressive house music (as opposed to prog-rock, I guess), interspersed with (many very similar to those used on the most recent Jurassic 5 album, sounding like Space Ghost) vocal samples — i.e., "I have a hard on" — a lot of heavily distorted keyboards, and just a taste of some harmonica.

Check the voice-mail message the song finishes with; a woman calls to give some guy the leg: "I fucking work my ass off all day while you jerk off." Ouch.

"Don’t Ro-Touch-Me-Bot" can’t help but call Devo to mind, it’s repeated mechanical phrasings opening into grindcore, but retaining a melody and bouncy rhythm. Best of all may be "The Moon Puppies," which features a voice first intoning that "he wasn’t cold, but he was cool," then a crazy 2, 4, 3, 1 chunk repeated tightly over a desperate keyboard stroke in the background. But then it bursts into lovely pop song, uptempo and alive with cheery vocals — depending on your tastes, you’ll either wish for more of it or tap your fingers waiting for it to end. Don’t worry — the song finishes with the chunks as bookend.

Clearly, the Horror share channel-surfing sensibilities with Confusatron. No wonder they’re on the same bill twice this week.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com

The Horror play, with Confusatron and Tubring, at the Asylum, in Portland, Dec. 11. Call (207) 772-8274. They headline a show, with Confusatron, at the Big Easy, in Portland, Dec. 18. Call (207) 871-8817.