Manchester’s leading purveyors of groove-laden, stoner/doom metal, Barbarian Hermit, have returned with their new album, Mean Sugar, out now via APF Records.
Written over a three-year period, ‘Mean Sugar’ is a cathartic creation set against a backdrop that has seen people endure a global pandemic, endless political turmoil, a cost of living crisis and war. During these times, the best coping mechanism is often to go into a room with your friends and focus your energy on playing some very heavy and loud music. It also may just be the heaviest ever tribute to Northern life. Frontman Simon Scarlett gives us the low down on the album’s tracks.
Mean Sugar:
It is about the meanest sugar of all: betrayal! It’s like when you buy a Blackpool rock or a Kendall mint cake, and it looks like it’s going to be tasty, but it’s actually an unpleasant stick that sticks to your teeth.
This was a weird one to write as we started with the ending riff and the last thing we wrote for it was the intro, so it was almost written backwards.
Battle Of Kompromat:
this track is about poor choices when camping, like when you camp too near to the bogs at a festival, and you regret where you pitched.
Although a lot of our songs are very collaborative, this was one where Mike brought the entire thing home and fully realized it in the practice room. The rest of us just brought the bells and whistles.
Out Come The Boasts / Who Put 50p In You?
This is about those tipping point coin pusher machines that you roll coins into, and they push back and forth, where you end up nudging each machine with your hip to make more pennies fall out. So symbolic, don’t you think?
It was originally one long song, but we decided to have the spacey intro as its own standalone piece.
Stitched Up:
This track is about foot powered Singer sewing machines and how essentially sewing machines ARE WITCHCRAFT!
This song felt like it almost fell out of us. While some of the other tracks on the album took nearly a year to finish, this was done in the space of a couple of jams.
Deadbolt:
This is about that terrifying moment when you let the door close behind you, pat your pockets, and can’t feel your keys. But then you find them in your bag, and everything is okay, but for a moment, panic takes over.
This was the first track we wrote for the album. We started in 2019, and an early demo of it was sent to Simon when he was considering re-joining. Hopefully, it helped sway his decision!
Kick Up The Dust:
Well, this song is, as it says on the tin, about kicking up dust like a bull about to stampede a torero. Olé!
Adam wrote the majority of the riffs at home during lockdown and brought them to the room once we were allowed to go back in. He’d been listening to a lot of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, and the influence of their off-kilter grooves can be heard all over this track.
Stranger Than Fiction:
This track is a homage to French author and philosopher Albert Camus, his moralist stance on government, and his rejection of the idea that total servitude can be considered freedom.
This started life as a jingle for Northern Monk. They commissioned us to write music for an advert for their non-alcoholic beer, Holy Faith. It was the first piece of music we recorded with Si after he returned. The riff was too good not to use on the album, so we turned a one-minute ditty into a six-minute epic.
Heal The Tyrant:
This track is about a broken distortion pedal. It’s a fuzz pedal called a Tyrant, and we needed it fixed at the time. However, we imagined it as a living entity with its own internal monologue and rich emotional history. I recall we carried it in a sock to a delightful engineer who fixed it with his soldering iron: to us, that man is like a life-giving surgeon. Sir, we salute you.
We enlisted the help of The Levy Chorus, a choir from Manchester with whom our friend Becky sings. They did a great job providing a siren song for the intro.
Check out the track Heal The Tyrant, below:
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Purchase the album here
