The Horrors — More Than Life

JUL 01 2025 · 12:00

The Horrors — More Than Life (2025) Director: Paris Seawell Era: Post-Punk Revival Maturity / Mid-2020s (2025) - Sixth-album-era The Horrors returning after an eight-year LP hiatus with a revised lineup, channeling existential introspection through a dense, industrialised post-punk and gothic rock palette on the Night Life album cycle. High curatorial value as a document of The Horrors' 2025 comeback era — a band whose discography maps nearly two decades of UK alternative music's shifting currents from garage-goth to shoegaze to industrialised post-punk. The video, directed by Paris Seawell under Vessel Video, exemplifies contemporary low-to-mid-budget UK alternative video production: technically accomplished, atmospherically precise, and genre-coherent. As the fourth single from Night Life, it sits at the apex of a carefully sequenced campaign and provides a benchmark for studying 2020s post-punk visual aesthetics. Context: Released January 17, 2025, 'More Than Life' arrived as the fourth single from The Horrors' sixth studio album Night Life (Fiction Records, March 21, 2025) — the band's first LP in eight years and their first without all five original members, following the departures of keyboardist Tom Furse and drummer Joe Spurgeon. The single emerged from a transitional creative period: demos were crafted in Rhys Webb's North London flat before recording in Los Angeles with producer Yves Rothman, with the band describing the song's genesis in the dystopian corporate landscape of Canary Wharf, comparing it to the Blade Runner setting. The video's intense, fast-paced visual language mirrors the band's stated aim to recapture the 'raw, instinctive spirit' of their early work while pushing into more anthemic, driving territory — a tension between their gothic post-punk origins and a maturing, expansive rock sound approaching their 20th anniversary. Director notes: Confirmed by IMVDb (imvdb.com/video/the-horrors/more-than-life) as director of 'More Than Life', premiered January 17, 2025. NME credited the video to 'Vessel Video (Paris Seawell)'. Seawell also directed the preceding Horrors single 'Trial By Fire' (2024), indicating an ongoing working relationship with the band and Fiction Records for the Night Life album campaign. The video was released as the fourth single from Night Life ahead of the album's March 21, 2025 release via Fiction Records / Virgin Music Group.