The ever-mercurial, boundary-pushing UK rock quartet Sugar Horse have released a new live in-studio performance of their huge track, 'Waterloo Teeth'. Taken from the new collaborative EP of the same name, you can view 'Waterloo Teeth' here: https://youtu.be/YD0JsiNqwsM
Waterloo Teeth is out now via Small Pond, and features members of Heriot, Conjurer, IDLES, Biffy Clyro, and many more. Purchase: https://sugarhorse.bandcamp.com/album/waterloo-teeth
The band comment: "'Waterloo Teeth' is a song about the relentless churn of age. We all get old, some of us faster than others. To be totally melodramatic, turning 30 and having kids makes a person really dwell on age and how it rolls forward with a relentless crawl. It's a cliche to say you don't notice the churn until it's too late, but that is one of life's cringe-inducing truism. So go forth, listen to us blasting this far too loud for such a cramped practice room and cringe away at our predictability."
Full tracklisting:
1. Disco Loadout (ft. Debbie Gough, Heriot, vocals; Damien Sayell, Mclusky, vocals; Matt Loveridge, MXLX, cello)
2. Waterloo Teeth (ft. Dave Larkin, Black Peaks, bass; Will Gardner, Black Peaks, saxophone; Paul Tierney, Lonely Tourist, vocals)
3. Gutted (ft. Kate Davies, Pupil Slicer, vocals; Dan Nightingale, Conjurer, vocals/guitar; Brady Deeprose, Conjurer, vocals/guitar; Conor Marshall, Conjurer, vocals/guitar; Nuala Honan, vocals)
4. Super Army Soldiers (ft. Adam Devonshire, IDLES, bass; Mike Vennart, Oceansize/Biffy Clyro/Vennart, guitar; Connie Matthews, Wych Elm, vocals)
Waterloo Teeth is true demonstration of Sugar Horse's refusal to conform or sit still. A community-building, genre-hopping release, the EP sees Sugar Horse letting the good times roll. Recorded during the Christmas break at Small Pond studios, sleeping among the amps, the four-track record is the Bristol group's excuse to work with some of the coolest musicians on the planet.
Sugar Horse's most out-there music yet, Waterloo Teeth turns ideas on their head. Opening track and first single 'Disco Loadout' is anti-Sugar Horse - a band previously known for long, melodic songs, this song instead is as short and atonal as possible. In contrast track three, 'Gutted' is the everything everywhere at once song, from Shellac-style noise, to Sleep-esque doom, to Cocteau Twins melody and back.
It is apt that Waterloo Teeth is a celebration of the limitations of art. Humans are compelled to create, creation drowns out the madness arounds us as keeps us alive. Where there is release, there is constraint; where there is constraint, there is creativity. It is this circle of life that Sugar Horse thrive in - Waterloo Teeth is a beguiling and irresistible invitation to join the circle.
It's not for nothing that Sugar Horse have become known as a nonconformist band. Their previous EPs Druj and Drugs were acclaimed amalgams of doom, hardcore, stoner and punk, continued by acclaimed debut LP The Live Long After. A band who were due to tour with Black Peaks before the inevitable Covid disruption, and who have toured with Vennart and played ArcTanGent, Sugar Horse have received praise from Upset Magazine, Metal Hammer, Revolver and Kerrang!, among others.
Forming in 2015 as a trio in a flat in Bristol, Sugar Horse fully came into being in 2019 with the addition of Jake Healy on baritone guitar and keyboards. Seeking to break away from emerging trends in their scene, the band's emphasis on simplicity and down-tempo heft belies an impressive sense of self-awareness and maturity. In their own words: "I think the best art is formed when it's creators enforce rigid rules on themselves. Mondrian had geometry, Mark E Smith had his hatred for cigarette taxation and we have a complete disregard for urgency."