I love the Star & Garter but I'd forgotten how depressing it can be when there is a poor turnout for a show. It takes me back to hardcore shows I put on in the nineties and early noughties where only ten people turned up. Tonight is better than that but it is still a pretty pitiful turnout, especially considering how good the new Sugar Horse album is.
Some of the members of BOI TOI were in the bar playing a Magic The Gathering style card game moments before they were due on stage. Their set starts with some samples while the guitar plays a Korn style downtuned riff. However, when the singer joins in it adds a bit of Mike Patton-esque madness to the proceedings. He mixes spoken word passages with screams and some manic falsetto, and it's a bit unhinged but at least in an interesting way. The second track has a riff reminiscent of Marilyn Manson's 'Beautiful People' but the vocals are again all over the place. This track seems more formulaic and therefore less interesting. The singer is on crutches and wearing a fracture boot but he gamely soldiers on, although I get the feeling he would be much more of a hyperactive presence if he was fully mobile. 'Piña Colada' has an electronic pulse and a semi-rapped delivery which is creepy, camp and crazy. It's a punchy little number which sounds like Genghis Tron meets Korn, and yes it is as nuts as that sounds. With such a bonkers mixture of styles, not every song is successful but they are certainly interesting.
Sugar Horse open with the steady stomp of 'Fire Graphics' with it's deliciously heavy riff. Ash Tubb's melodic and emotional vocals are amazing and they add an uplifting, anthemic quality to the music. The LLNN style tectonic heaviness of 'Secret Speech' is otherworldly. Their superpower is mixing the incredibly heavy with astonishing beauty and making it a cohesive whole.
The guitar tone is fantastic and really helps to amplify the impact of sections like the doomy passage in the middle of 'Spit Beach', which is like Big Business wading through tar. 'Ex-Human Shield' mixes lumbering noise rock with shimmering, hopeful shoegaze. It's discordant as hell but the glimmers of optimism shining through really elevate it. Even with earplugs in it's all incredibly loud.
The progressive 'Would You Like Me To Be The Cat?' is probably their most subtle moment, with some sublime guitar work which builds to a soaring, powerful climax. The centrepiece of the new album, 'History's Biggest T-Shirts', is staggering. Starting off all post-punk with twinkling synths and a Hooky style bassline along with some Dave Gahan-esque vocals, it is punctuated by some doomy bursts before veering into a lengthy ambient noise section which is utterly gorgeous despite its discordant nature. It isn't finished there though as it moves into the noisiest stadium rock you're ever heard before we're back to building levelling heaviness with an industrial feel. The closing 'Shouting Judas At Bob Dylan' mixes fragile emo rock with crushing doom to thrilling effect. Sugar Horse are a special band, I just wish more people realised it.
Sugar Horse ****
BOI TOI ***
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