The past year and a half has been a period of extremes for Tor Maries, the Bristol-based songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist known as Billy Nomates. After touring her acclaimed 2023 album CACTI, she faced a difficult moment when her Glastonbury performance received a wave of misogynistic online abuse, enough for her to request that the video be taken down. Yet this was only a small part of what she was truly navigating behind the scenes.
During this period, Maries decided to start managing herself, transform Billy Nomates from a solo project into a full band, and confront the long decline of her father, who had been living in a care home due to Parkinson’s disease. His passing in July the following year came as a devastating blow while she was working on what would become her third album, Metalhorse. Paradoxically, that process of loss and upheaval eventually pushed her to create her most ambitious and meaningful work to date. “Every two months something huge would happen—either magically brilliant or completely the opposite,” she recalls. “What I’m really looking for now is something in between.”
Produced by James Trevacsus and recorded at Paco Loco studio in Seville, Metalhorse is the first Billy Nomates album made in a professional studio with a full band. It features bassist Mandy Clarke and drummer Liam Chapman, both part of her live lineup. The trio arrived at the studio just three months after her father’s death, an emotionally charged moment given their deep musical connection. But on the first day of recording, Mandy received tragic news of her own and had to fly home. She would later record her bass parts in Bristol.
Rather than halting progress, this absence ended up shaping the album’s identity. Most tracks had already been demoed—except for “Strange Gift,” written in one night in Seville, and “Comedic Timing,” resurrected from five years earlier. Recording without bass in the room pushed Maries into unexpected experimentation, reconsidering textures, adding unconventional layers and expanding the sonic palette. What emerged was a fuller, more atmospheric album integrating blues, folk, piano-led arrangements, sharp electronics, and impressionistic soundscapes, while retaining the raw edge of Billy Nomates.
The album revolves around a conceptual image of a crumbling funfair, symbolising the volatility of life—risk and pleasure, danger and exhilaration. Rather than spelling it out in lyrics, Maries lets sound design build this world: slot machines on “Nothing Worth Winnin,” canned laughter on “Comedic Timing,” steam, engines and, throughout, the swirling tremolo of a rotating Leslie speaker to evoke the sensation of going round and round.
The songs explore navigating the music industry, resisting the urge to quit, confronting truths and accepting inevitable change. There is anger, humour, tenderness, and resilience threading through the record.
One of the most striking moments is the collaboration with Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers on “Dark Horse Friend,” which happened almost miraculously—he appeared at the studio the day after Maries mentioned him as an inspiration. For her, raised on the band’s catalog by her father, it was deeply emotional.
Lead single “The Test” captures the album’s spirit: the sense of surviving against all odds, as if unseen forces were helping her push forward. Despite grief, uncertainty and a recent MS diagnosis, Maries finds in Metalhorse a balance between darkness and hope.
Ultimately, Metalhorse invites the listener to find their own fairground: a place where life can be perilous, dizzying, and yet still illuminated by moments of joy and wonder.