Sugar Horse are a band that fell into my lap, a recommendation from my husband who one day told me, “Hey, I randomly found this song; I don’t like it but you probably will.” It was “I Liked You Better Before You Went to Art School” and yes, I did like it very much. So much, in fact, I greedily sought out all the music the UK quartet had cooked up until that point, and now at the peak of that excitement, I have the distinct pleasure to review The Grand Scheme of Things, the band’s most monolithic offering yet, and first for veteran label (and 9C favorite) Pelagic Records.

The great irony of The Grand Scheme of Things is that Sugar Horse call the album, “A move away from the kind of thing that is expected of us… if anything is at all” , yet this is an album that feels quintissentially ‘them’ to the core. Sugar Horse’s music has always been a delicate balancing act, and The Grand Scheme of Things shows the band, fittingly, at their most dispirate and defiant stage in their advancing career. Here, meditations on death and loss are juxtaposed with song titles like “The Shape of ASMR to Come” and “Mulletproof”, thick waves of distorted guitar washes underpin soaring clean vocals, and crushing sludge riffs entwine with sun-dappled post-rock to create something that hits all the musical bases the band have covered up until this point, but manages to bring them all together in a way that feels the most organic synthesis Sugar Horse have created yet.

For a band that describes themselves on their bandcamp as “decidedly average”, The Grand Scheme of Things is an album that feels far from average. From the crystalline opening of the title track to the near-twenty-five-minute closer “Space Tourist”, this is an album that spans a wide range of sounds, of influences, of emotions, and is delivered with the conviction of a band that demands you feel every moment of it. Every turn this album takes made me more excited to see where I’d end up next, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next Sugar Horse release for the very same reason.

– Vincent

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The Grand Scheme of Things will be available October 4 through Pelagic Records. For more information about Sugar Horse, visit the band’s Facebook page.