Billy Nomates has announced her new album ‘Metalhorse’ and shared the rebellious single ‘The Test’. Check it out below.
‘The Test’ features a low humming bass and bright piano interjections which are paired with Nomates’ – real name Tor Maries – powerful vocal lines. “Hall of mirrors / I do the wall of death / and I get fearless / when it pays my rent,” she sings.
The song was the first track written for the forthcoming album and has been described in a press release as an encapsulation of “the turmoil of the last 18 months and the bewilderment that Billy Nomates is still going in spite of it all.”
Maries described it as: “It’s working at something against the odds and feeling like someone’s helping you from the other side, and if they see you that’s the test. I really feel that when we’re playing it live. Like, with everything that’s going on, I can’t believe this is surviving.”
‘Metalhorse’ is set for release on May 16 via Invada and is available for pre-order here. It follows her 2023 LP ‘CACTI’ and her 2020 self-titled debut.
Produced by James Trevascus and recorded at Paco Loco in Seville, Spain, ‘Metalhorse’ is Maries’ first album to be created in a studio with a full band. A press release promises it to be a “fuller album” and sees the musician explore new genres such as blues, folk and piano-driven arrangements, transforming her usual stark punk sound into something more pastoral.
Maries’ and the full band – comprised of bass player Mandy Clarke (KT Tunstall, The Go! Team) and drummer Liam Chapman (Rozi Plain, BMX Bandits) – took to the studio shortly after the passing of her father.
Speaking about her relationship with her father, Maries said: “We were so close and our bond was music. That was my safety and protection in the world. Even in the care home, as things were getting worse, I’d visit him and he’d ask me what I was doing. I’d show him the new demos, or I’d have been on the radio. It sort of saved everything from being shit, because we had this positive thing to talk about.”
The ‘Metalhorse’ Tracklist is:
1. ‘Metalhorse’
2. ‘Nothing Worth Winning’
3. ‘The Test’
4. ‘Override’
5. ‘Dark Horse Friend feat. Hugh Cornwell’
6. ‘Life’s Unfair’
7. ‘Plans’
8. ‘Gas’
9. ‘Comedic Timing’
10. ‘Strange Gift’
11. ‘Moon Explodes’
The LP has been described as a concept album dealing with themes about the tumultuousness of life – risk and pleasure, danger and exhilaration. “To me, ‘Metalhorse’ is this crumbling fairground where some rides are nice to get on and some rides aren’t. That’s how life felt for a minute, and it still feels like that a bit now,” Maries explained.
She continued: “Those Leonard Cohen days might be ahead of me. but for now there has to be some hope, even if it’s not real. You have to tell someone that it’s going to be alright.”
Elsewhere, Billy Nomates will be performing a string of album release week in-store gigs as well as a handful of live dates in later this month and in April. Check out a full list of tour dates below and visit here to purchase tickets.
Billy Nomates 2025 live and in-store tour dates are:
MARCH
6 – Les Inrocks Festival, Paris, France – solo
29 – Ritual Union Festival headline, Bristol, UK – full band
APRIL
5 – Cro Cro Land Festival headline, Croydon, London, UK – solo
MAY (In-store)
18 – Rough Trade, Nottingham, UK
19 – Rough Trade East, London, UK
20 – Resident, Brighton, UK
22 – Just Dropped In, Coventry, UK