The Horrors have returned with a brutal new single which is the title track to a new three-track EP, ‘Lout’. Check it out below.

• READ MORE: A brief history of The Horrors

The band’s first new material since their 2017 fifth album ‘V’ marks a striking departure for The Horrors – adopting a new, towering industrial metal sound.

“’Lout’ is about the relationship between choice and chance, compulsive risk-taking and pushing your luck,” said frontman Faris Badwan. “As a band, particularly live, we’ve always had an aggressive side and as we began writing new songs it became clear that we were heading in that direction.”

Launched with a short film directed by Jordan Hemingway starring beauty executive Isamaya Ffrench and scored by guitarist Joshua Third and keyboardist Tom Furse, the band’s new aesthetic matches their gnarly and pummelling new sound.

“There’s something about it which feels like a return to a heavier sound but really it’s a million miles away from anything we’ve done,” said keyboardist Tom Furse. “Keeping the sound aggressive and the beats heavy was a central tenet, everything seemed to fall around that.”

Bassist Rhys Webb added: “It’s the nastiest music we’ve made since [2007 debut] ‘Strange House’. An intense barrage of industrial noise. A return to the spirit and attitude of our debut LP but blasted into the future.”

Next month the band will release a new self-produced EP of ‘Lout’ backed by the tracks ‘Org’ and ‘Whiplash’ – with all of the new songs written and recorded remotely during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“In the past whenever we’ve written stuff with a harder edge it’s come from the energy we get from all playing together in a room but creating this kind of atmosphere remotely was a different challenge,” said Badwan. “It’s the same level of intensity as the 100-miles-an-hour stuff we’ve done in the past but the anger is somehow more channelled. I can’t wait to play these songs live as there’s so much freedom in that kind of chaos.”

Free from the pressure of the usual release schedule treadmill, Webb explained how the band enjoyed the act of “not making record for anybody except ourselves” – with that liberating spirit feeding into their next album.

“With so many platforms now lost, the pressure to deliver a single for radio or to get on TV just doesn’t exist any more and is probably all the better for it,” he added. “The only thing we need to worry about is making the most exciting new music we can. We’re lucky enough to have been together for 15 years and to be working on our sixth studio LP.

“It seemed like the perfect time to go in guns blazing, no holds barred full on Horrors, the way it should always be.”

The Horrors release the ‘Lout’ EP on March 12. Pre-order it here.

This comes after Badwan recently teamed up with John Coxon for the collaborative two-track 12″ single of ‘Boiling Point/Promise Land’, and Furse releasing his latest solo album, ‘Ecstatic Meditations’.