SLUDGE SURREALISTS SUGAR HORSE SHARE UNCOMPROMISING NEW SINGLE “SPIT BEACH” — LISTEN
NEW ALBUM GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS TO BE RELEASED ON OCTOBER 4 VIA PELAGIC RECORDSBristol-based sludge metal experimentalists Sugar Horse have shared the single “Spit Beach” ahead of their much anticipated second full-length album, The Grand Scheme of Things, due to be released by Berlin’s Pelagic Records on October 4.
Eclectic and idiosyncratic from the outset, Sugar Horse have never done things the easy way. Intended to be something of a sideways step, The Grand Scheme of Things sees the band cast aside easy assumptions and expectations of what metal music can or should be. Gone are the obvious hammerblow hallmarks of a “metal” record; in their place the four-piece present tight song structures and pop-inspired melodies whilst still producing an album of the heaviest order.
A meditation on the journey towards death and how life continues afterwards, The Grand Scheme of Things inadvertently became an outlet for singer/guitarist Ashley Tubb, who’s adoptive father passed away just as the band began working on the record.
The new single, “Spit Beach,” is ’80s-inspired, coldwave ballad colliding, without warning, with churning sludge beatdowns as Tubb considers how formative moments and experiences of his father’s life imbued him with a deeply fatalistic outlook and how, in turn, this cynicism has been passed onto Tubb. However, for Tubb this is a shared connection to be cherished as he and the rest of Sugar Horse turn the song’s immediate premise on its head, transforming what could have been a discordant, laconic lament into a resounding battle cry in praise of pessimism.
Determined to do things the difficult way, without resting on easy laurels, the discomfort and confrontation of The Grand Scheme of Things is bracingly honest, uncompromising both musically and lyrically and represents an incredible step forward for Sugar Horse, a band already working on the edge of experimental heavy music.
“This song is almost meant to be a pessimist’s battle cry,” shares Tubb. “When I sing it, I feel like I’m channelling him in a way… Even though he would’ve probably just thought it was a horrible row.”
