Horror Section review – Pleasant little shop of horrors

St Louis, Missouri is best known as the home of piano-based blues music and the birthplace of Chuck Berry, but the city's latest proteges offer a heady cocktail of horror movies and punk rock. After putting in the hours and churning out a string of well-received singles and EPs, Horror Section present their self-titled debut album, which they themselves liken to "equal parts Ramones and Freddie Krueger". They've certainly taken a cue from the seminal pop punk pioneers from New York City, in addition to horror punk progenitors The Misfits, The Damned and The Cramps, as no song exceeds 2½ minutes, and most are far shorter. Sixteen short, sharp shocks of songs are shoehorned into 31 mere minutes, delivering a neat and noisy lesson in brevity in a day and age when some extended edition releases quite literally can go on for days on end. The infectiously catchy Are You There and the buzzing bubblegum pop of First Kill exemplify just how effective this approach can be, splicing horror with noise pop and having enormous fun in the process. Horror Section haven't reinvented the wheel, but they're very good at turning it in their own direction.