Cementing themselves as one of the UK’s most exciting new heavy bands with their 2021 debut album The Live Long After and their star studded follow up EP Waterloo Teeth – which featured contributions from members of Idles, Heriot and Black Peaks to name a few – Sugar Horse have carefully crafted their sound with doom inspired riffs, vocals that melt effortlessly from an atmospheric whisper to banshee-like screams and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour. On their latest EP Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, Sugar Horse take their deliberately paced, trudging sound to an extreme new level, splitting one extended piece of music into six more easily digested tidbits.
Channelling their inner Bell Witch, Sugar Horse explore every crevice of Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico for potential musical ideas across the EP’s almost twenty minute runtime. Ramping up from the EP’s ominous opener ‘Truth’, with frontman Ashley Tubb’s chanting vocals taking centre stage, reverberating through the track as droning guitars and synths build up around it before fading into the far more aggressive, Cult Of Luna inspired ‘Or’. Sugar Horse succeed in making each part of Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico sound unique and individual while keeping the entire EP one unified, cohesive piece of music flowing naturally through different styles and influences.
“Although some of the EP’s tracks can work on some level as individual songs it’s best to think of them more like snippets of a larger whole, allowing the piece’s peaks and valleys to roll by organically”
Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico gives Sugar Horse plenty of room to explore musically, leaning into the deliberate tedium and away from traditional rock music song structures. Although some of the EP’s tracks can work on some level as individual songs it’s best to think of them more like snippets of a larger whole, allowing the piece’s peaks and valleys to roll by organically, whether with the crushing, progressive-metal brutality of ‘Comma’ or the subdued ambience of ‘Consequences’.
Keeping much of the band’s trademark humour intact, Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico’s lyrics provide plenty of variety and wit to accompany the EP’s wild changes in mood and genre. From the gloomy, Field Of Dreams referencing dirge of ‘Truth’ to the repeated, barbarous mantras on ‘Neu’, Sugar Horse are as experimental with their lyrical content as with their musical ideas. As the piece draws to a close with the drawn-out finale of ‘Neu’ and ‘Mexico’ the lyrics devolve into a repeated, screamed “Inhale, exhale” as the guitar lines get progressively more manic, fading right as they reach a final, climactic summit.
Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico is a daring new step forward for Sugar Horse, allowing them to throw off the shackles of traditional songwriting and mine a single piece of music for every gem it holds. Granted, this may not be the band’s first foray into extended single tracks, with the 13 minute single ‘The Great Shame’ releasing in 2020, but certainly, it’s their best. Exploring both their heaviest and most atmospheric work to date, Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico is a definitive portrait of Sugar Horse at their best.