Sick Joy

About this event

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Born in Newcastle’s underground circuit and cultivated in Brighton’s renowned music scene, Sick Joy is the sonic heartbeat of singer and multi instrumentalist Mykl Barton. Coined late one evening in a North East bar, the project's name became the perfect metaphor for Barton’s enduring obsession with duality: beauty vs. ruin, euphoria vs. despair. Sick Joy became a vehicle to channel years of disarray and turmoil into a sound where rabid riffs sit beside soaring widescreen choruses. On stage Sick Joy is a direct, super-charged organism, translating Barton’s cathartic songwriting into ferocious, communal release. Drawing acclaim across UK press and the festival circuit for their debut album, they garnered support slots with everyone from Deaf Havana to Pearl Jam and Pixies. Sophomore album More Forever expands the band’s alt-rock DNA while adding industrial nods, with bruising potent drums, jagged synths, and lyrics that wrestle systemic damage, grief, love and survival into brutal poetry. The album's twelve tracks were born over a period of 12 months between an attic in Newcastle and a lock-up near Brighton. They then went on to be recorded in a remote Spanish studio with acclaimed producer Alain Johannes (Queens Of The Stone Age, Mark Lanegan, Chris Cornell, Them Crooked Vultures) at the desk; later mixed by Josh “Hoagie” Harrison (Royal Blood, The Cure). If the debut asked why life hurts, More Forever answers by doubling the tension: bigger choruses, sharper hooks, and an unblinking cold refusal to flinch. Sick Joy is the stark sound of someone turning private collapse into public celebration - proof that the things that nearly break us can sometimes make the loudest, most life-affirming noise.