“That bit makes me feel very clever when we play it, and at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing.
” – The Live Long After: Track by Track with Sugar Horse

To say that Sugar Horse sell themselves short by stating themselves “decidedly average” would be touch of an understatement.

Originally creeping in from the deepest and dankest crevices of the South West scene at the tail end of the last decade, the Bristol void-lurkers have organically cultivated a strong reputation for their remarkable penchant for articulating the nature of the abyss that awaits beyond the veil. Their original and initial EPs, entitled DRUJ and DRUGS, where fantastic insights into their sound and identity, but it’s their immaculate and immersive long play debut The Live Long After that truly presents the almost unparalleled soundscapes that Sugar Horse originate from.

A record of sardonic absurdism that’s heavily reminiscent of Mogwai, The Live Long After amalgamates post-rock, shoegaze, doom and noise-rock to a point where even trying to summarise the album using such tags feels redundant and limiting. Instead, the group’s debut is a gorgeously translucent and vivid effort that scoffs at the face of genre-norms and conformity. With an almost glacial pacing, the album explores and intertwines an encyclopedic knowledge of genres and stylings in a way that’s glacial but never not once tedious in it’s prolonged ruminations.

With the record out now via Small Pond Records and Art As Catharsis, we got in touch with guitarist and vocalist Ash Tubb to break down The Live Long After, track by track.

Related: Sugar Horse – The Live Long After | Album Review

“Welcome reader to a tale of a painfully self-important band making their first album. I’d like to pre-warn everyone that at times the next few hundred words may seem pretentious and possibly even veer on the edge of full blown psychopathy. Now that you’re all warmed up and no doubt raring for more, I guess I better start talking shite.
”

I Am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been….

“As tediously close to Thom Yorke as this may sound I was listening to a lot of medieval choral music while we wrote this album. I really like the way there’s a kind of droning bass note underneath all the melodies in those pieces. It’s so tense and brittle. You’re just begging it to change chord for minutes at a time. Thought we could nick that…so we did. “

“The backing track was pretty fun as well. The only thing on the record that’s not really a live performance and definitely the only track that has a definite bpm. It’s essentially one hit of the whole band hitting A (except Sav (Martin Savage, drums) obviously, drums can’t play notes and that’s a fact) that’s looped over and over again for about 2mins. Stick a load of guitar feedback over it and you’ve got instant discomfort.
”

Shouting Judas At Bob Dylan

“The first track written for the album and the first song I’ve ever written lyrics for before writing any music. Lyrically it talks about the perpetuated myth of “good old England” and living with the ghosts of empires past. Kind of weird that those words were written in 2019. I guess this song is kind of our attempt to rip off Mclusky, but it’s done so terribly that it sounds nothing like ‘em. Kinda like when things fall into place like that.”

Fat Dracula

“It’s so rare that we actually manage to write something that comes in under five minutes and when the demo of this one came in under four, I think we were all just massively confused.”

“I love the bone headed horror of the choruses (if you can call them that) in Fat Dracula. Just everyone hammering on a discord each. It’s really the opposite of subtle isn’t it?”

“Lyrically it’s about the joy of employment and the endless, golden light it shines into all of our lives. What do we get when it’s finished, except a pension pot and a bad fucking back? Where would we be without it? Well….the streets. Quite the deal.
”

Phil Spector In Hell

“The ending section of this had been knocking around for years. We had a heavied up demo of it before we went into record the DRUGS EP. It wasn’t all that great, but the chorus was really killer and we knew it had to go in something. I think I spliced a few different demos together in the end and managed to come up with the skeleton of Phil as it is now. I really love the heavy bass and drums break that Chris (Howarth, bass) and Sav came up with before that end section explodes. It really gives you zero clue of what’s coming next and is definitive proof that more bass lines should have bends in ‘em.”

The Live Long After

“Quite a few of our tracks have loads of ideas kinda stuck end to end in a way that semi-makes sense. We thought it’d be cool to try and do a song that was just kind of one thing. One riff or whatever that just looped through the whole song and changed over time. Eventually we gave into temptation and stuck a couple extra parts here and there, but essentially this is the simplest song on the record and I really like that. A few people have told me so far that this track really made them jump, like a horror film or a well timed BOO, and that really makes me happy. We quite like doing things that are unexpected and I guess you can’t really ask for more than that.”

Terrible Things Are Happening As We Speak

“This track started with a couple of Jake’s (Healy, guitar, keys) riffs. He plays a big ol’ baritone guitar, so it’s already mad low. He decided to tune down for this one, which left mine and Chris’ pathetic, normal instruments hanging on for dear life. I love how mad all the transitions in this song are. We fully threw the kitchen sink at it and you can really tell. Occasionally we do these riffs I like to call “Meshuggah For Dummies” parts and this one closes with one of them. I think it’s a polyrhythm…..I think……I am an idiot though. Anyway, that bit makes me feel very clever when we play it and that is, at the end of the day, the most important thing.
”

“I am and have essentially always been, an adopted child. Lyrically this a bit of a rambling on that. I tend to feel that other adopted people are the closest thing I have to siblings, so this is a bit of a rallying cry to them. Us unwanted kids have gotta stick together.
”

The Great British Death Cult

“Most of our songs tend to be structured as follows: LOUD NOISE > quiet verse > LOUD CHORUS > weird middle bit > BIG STUPID RIFF
.”

“This is fun, but you can’t do that forever can you. People will point and laugh. We thought this one could kind of invert that. End with a nice ambient bit to really annoy everyone that wanted another mosh part.”

“This one’s all about the mindset of being a member of a cult. The kinda thought processes of following something, that to the outside world may seem completely insane, but to you seems like the one true path. I enjoy writing lyrics from the perspective of someone I think is morally bankrupt. Kind of forces you to come at certain subjects from a completely different angle and you end up finding similarities between mindsets that you’d never see otherwise. It’s also fun to be the bad guy from time to time.”

Dadcore World Cup

“Every now and again a banging chorus just comes to you and this was one of those. It’s nice when it happens, as it feels quite easy. You always hear rockstar bastards talking about how inspiration will just STRIKE THEM MAN or COME TO THEM IN A DREAM, but that’s just bollocks. It never happens like that. Essentially, if you write enough stuff and put in the work and time, eventually 3 things out of the 150 things you wrote will be pretty good. It’s just a rule of numbers. Anyway, after writing a lot of stuff for this album, this chorus finally came out and gradually the rest of the song fell into place around it.”

“Chris came up with the bass riff and the kind of double time Krautrock section at the end, which is really cool ‘cause we’ve never really done anything like that before. I have to give a huge shout out to Mari & Craig for providing the beautiful strings in this songs middle section. Recorded all the way over in Japan! Crazy times we live in.
”

“This one’s a kind of letter to my daughter and her already very prominent force of will. This world we live in isn’t the nicest at times, but she’ll make it bow before her. I can just tell.
”

…A Las Vegas Showgirl

“The idea of bookending the album with the same riff came up pretty early. We just needed the part. When that part finally came it felt like it was meant to be. I love playing that part live, as it’s essentially just the same part over and over again with more and more fuzz pedals being switched on as time goes by. Proper dorky. Music should be dorky I reckon.
”

“I love the verses, if you can call them that, in this as well. The big chugs with the world’s stupidest guitar tone. Massive props to Andy Hawkins who helped us produce this thing. The amount of times we said “it needs to be more disgusting” and instead of laughing it off, he’d pull out a weird fuzz pedal and make it even more horrible than we could’ve imagined, are pretty much uncountable. Andy is a huge part of the sound of this record and it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as gnarly and fukt up as it is without all his help.”

“Thank you for reading this long and no doubt tedious rant about our album. In all seriousness we’re immeasurably grateful for everyone that’s checked it out so far and to all the utter lunatics who’ve spent their hard earned money getting a copy. It’s a proper dream. See you all at a show some time soon I hope.
”

“Keep yourselves warm.”