The Horrors

The second album from Iowa's premier garage-abilly trio is a more polished affair than their tantrum of a debut from 2000. While some may miss the avalanches of blown-out guitar that previously identified the band, at least you can understand what they're screaming about here, and songs like "Hope's Blues" and "Sooner or Later" are plenty strong without any loud-to-louder gimmicks. As a last word, Vent is something like the Oblivians' 9 Songs, where the Oblivians dropped the gags and just played soul-gospel; here the Horrors play a faithful and unfiltered version of rockabilly.