Rocker (feedbot)
Platinum Member
It’s time. That slow, creeping sense of dread. The feeling that plans were being made, that schemes were being hatched, and that something evil is brewing in the depths of Brighton. Yes, Sugar Horse are back with their third full-length record. If you’ve followed their career, you’ll be excited. You know you’ll have no idea just what you’re about to get yourself in to. Brace yourself.
Listening to a Sugar Horse record can be like opening a jigsaw puzzle, looking at all the scattered pieces and wondering how in the world they fit together. Helpfully, on ‘Not A Sound In Heaven’, they’ve made it easy by making the most straightforward record of their career.
The effect is that you’re no longer gasping ‘what-on-earth-are-you-doing?’ at their audacity but giving a slow nod of appreciation instead. You recognise the choices they make, the ways the songs unfold and the sounds they are painting with. And for the first time, it feels like they’ve done what you expected. That is surprising, but also reassuring. It has a Sugar Horse sound. It has the Sugar Horse sound. The hard part is trying to define it. You can throw around genres like shoegaze, post-metal, blackgaze and even indie rock. They’re all accurate, as it’s all of those things. Yet none of them come close to doing it justice. Sugar Horse’s music is more of a feeling than anything, like a bad trip on a handful of really interesting mushrooms.
For this new record, the band has taken the drastic step of constructing their own studio. This is a sensible idea. It adds certainty, creates control, and it gives them time. It has also allowed them to record their creations live and to capture a tangible sense of weight. This is particularly useful for a band whose whole schtick is tone, detail and substance. You can hear this in all sorts of ways, like on ‘Secret Speech’, where the bass has such a grubby attack that it feels like the amp is going to blow at any second. There’s also the drum sound on ‘Company Town’, which echoes like the oncoming apocalypse. Then there are those guitar tones on ‘Fire House‘ that you can almost shake hands with. It all sounds great.
The new surroundings also seem to have changed something else. Although the vocals shift styles in strange and alluring ways; singing, bellowing or screeching, there is a stronger emphasis on melody here. While Sugar Horse have never shied away from an uplifting harmony or two, the way clean singing is threaded through the songs makes the record feel more accessible than their previous work, even though their choices remain so strong. Most obviously, the title track could almost be a 1980’s power ballad, but evil; really evil.
All records are inspired by something and the influences here are really interesting. They quote numerous tomes of socio-political commentary, speeches by philosophers and Marxist texts. While this doesn’t make the music better than ditties about love or scientific epics, it does give the album a sense of focus, an underpinning idea. Amusingly, it’s probably why so many of the songs become a dark, punishing void – the world is neither stable, nor optimistic, and the philosophical texts give these songs a dark and introspective edge.
As the name suggests, ‘Fire Graphics’ sounds like it was recorded during the Great Fire Of London. After a slow, thumping opening, burning, buzzing sounds enter, creating a fiery backdrop for Ash Tubb to sing over, only for the foundations to give out and the whole thing to collapse into a swaying stomp. Across the record’s runtime, it’s notable how often they return to these ideas. The smoky, foggy sound of ‘Secret Speech’ is also held together by a massive pounding stomp, although this too blows up into a sort of nightmarish aftermath.
The most esoteric track here, ‘Ex-human Shield’, features an incredible left turn as it switches from screeching over thumping drums to a heavenly choir. It’s an exercise in tonal whiplash, especially as it then drops back to the heaviest possible, detuned pounding. Why this works is less of a mystery than on their previous records. The choices are foreshadowed, their mental wheels a little more exposed, and it all makes you feel clever, so they take a massive swing…
In Jeff Vandermer’s novel ‘Annihilation’ (and Alex Garland’s film adaptation) scientists explore something called The Shimmer – a strange, multifaceted entity that shifts and changes with uncertain intent. Solely by entering its area, you become part of its strange, feral and evolutionary self. ‘History’s Biggest T-shirts’ is that. The band’s previous album ‘The Grand Scheme Of Things’ spent its final twenty-five minutes exploring a gently shifting soundscape and this song feeds from the same DNA. However, locating it in this album’s centre gives it an odd character. It’s a ten-minute epic that grows like a tumour, until it becomes a horrible, screamy mass – and it is incredible.
After boldly bisecting their record, the second part maintains its momentum with the title track, a song that mixes heaviness with shininess in a way that feels like a planet being crushed to dust and sprinkled across the cosmos. The understated epic ‘You Can’t Say Dallas Doesn’t Love You’ swells like a swarming beehive, bringing the journey to a climax. It doesn’t outstay its welcome, meaning the record is relatively short for the style, but this works in its favour. It’s focused, heavy and to the point.
Their debut ‘The Live Long After’ was a masterclass in strange tension and release, while their second was a more esoteric exploration of the universe’s darkness. This, with its clean vocals and shuffling drums, leaves you with the disconcerting feeling that Sugar Horse have made a pop record. They never make things easy, but this is the sound of cool, confident geniuses.
Listening to ‘Not A Sound In Heaven’ is like foiling a villain’s master plan. It’s a dastardly web of complex ideas that is a joy to unpick.
IAN KENWORTHY
Listening to a Sugar Horse record can be like opening a jigsaw puzzle, looking at all the scattered pieces and wondering how in the world they fit together. Helpfully, on ‘Not A Sound In Heaven’, they’ve made it easy by making the most straightforward record of their career.
The effect is that you’re no longer gasping ‘what-on-earth-are-you-doing?’ at their audacity but giving a slow nod of appreciation instead. You recognise the choices they make, the ways the songs unfold and the sounds they are painting with. And for the first time, it feels like they’ve done what you expected. That is surprising, but also reassuring. It has a Sugar Horse sound. It has the Sugar Horse sound. The hard part is trying to define it. You can throw around genres like shoegaze, post-metal, blackgaze and even indie rock. They’re all accurate, as it’s all of those things. Yet none of them come close to doing it justice. Sugar Horse’s music is more of a feeling than anything, like a bad trip on a handful of really interesting mushrooms.
For this new record, the band has taken the drastic step of constructing their own studio. This is a sensible idea. It adds certainty, creates control, and it gives them time. It has also allowed them to record their creations live and to capture a tangible sense of weight. This is particularly useful for a band whose whole schtick is tone, detail and substance. You can hear this in all sorts of ways, like on ‘Secret Speech’, where the bass has such a grubby attack that it feels like the amp is going to blow at any second. There’s also the drum sound on ‘Company Town’, which echoes like the oncoming apocalypse. Then there are those guitar tones on ‘Fire House‘ that you can almost shake hands with. It all sounds great.
The new surroundings also seem to have changed something else. Although the vocals shift styles in strange and alluring ways; singing, bellowing or screeching, there is a stronger emphasis on melody here. While Sugar Horse have never shied away from an uplifting harmony or two, the way clean singing is threaded through the songs makes the record feel more accessible than their previous work, even though their choices remain so strong. Most obviously, the title track could almost be a 1980’s power ballad, but evil; really evil.
All records are inspired by something and the influences here are really interesting. They quote numerous tomes of socio-political commentary, speeches by philosophers and Marxist texts. While this doesn’t make the music better than ditties about love or scientific epics, it does give the album a sense of focus, an underpinning idea. Amusingly, it’s probably why so many of the songs become a dark, punishing void – the world is neither stable, nor optimistic, and the philosophical texts give these songs a dark and introspective edge.
As the name suggests, ‘Fire Graphics’ sounds like it was recorded during the Great Fire Of London. After a slow, thumping opening, burning, buzzing sounds enter, creating a fiery backdrop for Ash Tubb to sing over, only for the foundations to give out and the whole thing to collapse into a swaying stomp. Across the record’s runtime, it’s notable how often they return to these ideas. The smoky, foggy sound of ‘Secret Speech’ is also held together by a massive pounding stomp, although this too blows up into a sort of nightmarish aftermath.
The most esoteric track here, ‘Ex-human Shield’, features an incredible left turn as it switches from screeching over thumping drums to a heavenly choir. It’s an exercise in tonal whiplash, especially as it then drops back to the heaviest possible, detuned pounding. Why this works is less of a mystery than on their previous records. The choices are foreshadowed, their mental wheels a little more exposed, and it all makes you feel clever, so they take a massive swing…
In Jeff Vandermer’s novel ‘Annihilation’ (and Alex Garland’s film adaptation) scientists explore something called The Shimmer – a strange, multifaceted entity that shifts and changes with uncertain intent. Solely by entering its area, you become part of its strange, feral and evolutionary self. ‘History’s Biggest T-shirts’ is that. The band’s previous album ‘The Grand Scheme Of Things’ spent its final twenty-five minutes exploring a gently shifting soundscape and this song feeds from the same DNA. However, locating it in this album’s centre gives it an odd character. It’s a ten-minute epic that grows like a tumour, until it becomes a horrible, screamy mass – and it is incredible.
After boldly bisecting their record, the second part maintains its momentum with the title track, a song that mixes heaviness with shininess in a way that feels like a planet being crushed to dust and sprinkled across the cosmos. The understated epic ‘You Can’t Say Dallas Doesn’t Love You’ swells like a swarming beehive, bringing the journey to a climax. It doesn’t outstay its welcome, meaning the record is relatively short for the style, but this works in its favour. It’s focused, heavy and to the point.
Their debut ‘The Live Long After’ was a masterclass in strange tension and release, while their second was a more esoteric exploration of the universe’s darkness. This, with its clean vocals and shuffling drums, leaves you with the disconcerting feeling that Sugar Horse have made a pop record. They never make things easy, but this is the sound of cool, confident geniuses.
Listening to ‘Not A Sound In Heaven’ is like foiling a villain’s master plan. It’s a dastardly web of complex ideas that is a joy to unpick.
IAN KENWORTHY