Album Review: Sugar Horse – The Grand Scheme of Things (Pelagic Records)

The monolithically heavy, uniquely mercurial UK quartet Sugar Horse return with their new album ‘The Grand Scheme of Things’ to be released 4th October via Pelagic Records. A meditation on the journey toward death, The Grand Scheme of Things is the outlet for singer Ash Tubb – a funeral pyre even – for his late father, who passed away just as work on this record was beginning.

It was a cold Wednesday night in October 2021 that Sugar Horse first came my way. I attended their show at the 229 in London and was sold immediately. They were already a substantial name at this point, but over the past few years, I’ve watched and listened to them grow and consistently release music that can often be called transcendent.

They have grown into one of my favourite bands in the world, and I greet each new release with the kind of delight often reserved for more personal moments. What they do and what they create just connects, even when the focus is something far more personal to them. Which is very much the case here.

It’s hard to imagine Sugar Horse topping the brilliance that is the album, ‘The Live Long After’, but ‘The Grand Scheme of Things’ manages it. Even if comparing the two isn’t as straight-forward as you may expect. Yes, this new album is Sugar Horse and the group continue to genre-bend in mesmerising ways. However, there is also a simplicity to this album that results in some of their most accessible music to date.

Accessible, filled with an extravagant amount of emotive atmosphere, and uniquely detailed. This is just the opening title track, and what a powerful epic it is. Sugar Horse’s laidback style taking centre stage and even though this is a track that transforms bit by bit, it never goes too far beyond a sense of dreaminess.

Bar well and truly set, but here’s The Shape of ASMR to Come to smash it out of the way completely. I don’t think it’s a secret that Phil Spector in Hell is my favourite Sugar Horse song. A truly staggering piece of music and unlikely to ever be knocked from its perch. However, this bloody song comes really close. A phenomenal example of the band leaning into their shoegaze style here, adding so much emotion to things, and delivering something that is exceptionally beautiful. The more intense and weightier segment that follows the quiet vocal lines and soft melody section is one of the best moments of the entire album. Although the heavy latter half is great too. Hear this album, but if you only have time for one, make it this track.

It’s rare that an album, two tracks in, has already left such an immeasurable impression and there’s almost a building dread that it won’t be able to sustain this high level of quality. This is Sugar Horse though and they offer up stunning harmony with a discombobulating edge on Corpsing. The unusual drumbeat, pop-style vocals, and extensive flair up of guitar ends up leading to the biggest, and most anthemic sounds this band has ever produced. Maybe. Even though they are creatively strange and always willing to push boundaries, you’d be surprised by how often Sugar Horse deliver big anthemic sounds.

As difficult as it is, we gotta move on and there’s a strong whiff of melodic dissonance with the following Mulletproof. A track covered with a thick haze of experimental atmosphere, but then around the halfway point, that dissipates to leave the vocals alone and screaming into the void. Before a crashing and smashing of instruments transforms this track into one of the heaviest and filthiest tracks of all. Even though the following Spit Beach comes mightily close with its egregious flair ups of heavy, layered amongst touching airiness. How Sugar Horse transition between the two styles with such ease is outstanding.

How about something even more off-kilter? Something with a fascinating level of alt-twisted tones? Something daringly odd and something daringly intense? It’s New Dead Elvis and the riff-focused power of this one is as memorable as everything else. Which includes the following Jefferson Aeroplane Over the Sea, a chance to lean back and let the soft sounds of cinematic ambience and vocals that alternate between mellow and melodramatic wash over you. Does it get any more epic than it does at the end here?

Then along comes Office Job Simulator to change the tone to be more discombobulating with its erratic mix of riffs, soaring clean vocals and harsh growls, big percussion hooks, and wilder metal-focused edge. It’s one of the more surreal songs overall.

What an album, what an experience, and what a band Sugar Horse are. Very few would be brave enough to end their album, an already substantial listen, with a near 25-minute finale. It’s Space Tourist and it is special. A special track among special tracks and if you’ve made it this far, there is no way you’re not all in on this one too. Sit back, focus on nothing but the music, allow it to spread through the mind far and wide, and be willing to open your heart and soul to it. Your patience and time is richly rewarded.

What do you want me to say here? You know what this is. It’s my album of the year, without question.

Sugar Horse – The Grand Scheme of Things Track Listing:

1. The Grand Scheme of Things
2. The Shape of ASMR to Come
3. Corpsing
4. Mulletproof
5. Spit Beach
6. New Dead Elvis
7. Jefferson Aeroplane Over the Sea
8. Office Job Simulator
9. Space Tourist

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