Sunstinger Drop A Massive, Spacious, and Heavy EP
Finally, the full EP release from Sunstinger arrives, and it's pretty much everything I was hoping for plus a little extra. The reason I say this is because this record has both massive soundscapes drenched in reverb effects and it soaks you with its blistering heaviness, but also its almost graceful melodic flows, and because of that fluctuation between grunge, alternative, and dream, it has a unique sense of self.
What I mean is that the record stays true to its heart. These guys blend what some would consider to be noise or garage tones, gritty, dirty, fuzzy, and sonically thriving, with the elegance of flowing melody and tonality, always bordering on that shoegaze approach, but always with its own breed of aesthetic.
The EP is dubbed SPARE ME THE RAPTURE, and it kicks right off with "ZEROSUM", which starts with those flowing and distant guitars, coated in a chorus effect along with soft, delicate, dreamy vocals that are almost whispering, used as an instrument themselves, and they bleed into each other freely, creating that filmic atmosphere the band is quite known for.
This song has a very particular way of pulling you in with its slow burn and then hitting you with an explosive heaviness that just feels immense.
This is kind of how the whole record goes. It's very immersive. And does so by sort of sneaking up on you, and then it becomes huge and heavy, still melodically bovine and robust, but that heaviness is there and you just ride that wave.
What's cool about songs like this in a record like this, as a whole, is that there are always these layers of guitars. For example, this track still has those clean guitars underneath the heavy ones, so you have that really hard-hitting alternative distortion, packing in melodic flow, but the softer side is still there. You can still hear the chorus affecting clean guitars underneath those heavy ones, creating something unique and thick.
Songs like " I THINK I HALF REMEMBER" also display monumental depth and the band's approach to sound sculpting. You always have this sort of drifting, floating dreaminess in the songs. Sometimes they're in the underbelly of them, while other times they're right up front; these are used to slowly wrap themselves around you. Once you're in there, you're in there. You don't want to leave.
By the time you get a few songs into the record, you start to get used to the way the songs breathe. And that's what they do. They breathe. There's always calm before the uproarious storms, and that's part of their game.
The thing is, the calm sections are so beautifully done. Again, very elegant, smooth, soft, and subtle, making sure that you are vulnerable enough for those explosive sections to kick in and take you by storm.
"BARELY HERE" serves up some of that noise-rock, and garage tonality; it's got a faster pace, it's a little bit more in your face, the attitude is slightly more aggressive, but again, they don't stray from that dream-esque and shoegaze formula or Texture.
This is part of why the record sounds so consistent.
The drumming is really perfectly in place. When those explosive parts come in, the drumming pushes those boundaries. The energy feeds off of the songwriting, and the whole thing packs such a heavy-handed punch just at the right times.
Nothing is overdone, but instead super well-balanced, and this is something I've said about the band in general. Before the EP was released, they dropped the title track from the record as a single, and this is a great display of what you can expect on the record itself.
It's attention to detail in the songwriting and arrangements. This band is all about arrangement. Catching you off guard, getting you in this sort of calm drifting space, and then hitting you with something massive.
As I mentioned earlier, the vocals are often used almost like an instrument themselves. They're never something that's the main point of focus, but rather part of the full picture. I really dig this aspect because you don't get that often.
The vocals are one with the instruments, and I love how it all comes together and fits perfectly so that you have something you can swim through.
Do not miss out on this record, and if you're going to listen to it, which you absolutely should, then do it in full.
Don't just skip around from different songs. Listen to the whole record at once. It is six tracks, and all of them have such an awesome world for you to step into.
It's very cinematic, it's very spacious, and it can be really aggressive, but once more, the name of the game here is being able to pull you into songs and give you massive climactic waves of sonic sound that come in, still melodically thriving, and they do it amazingly.
So, don't miss out on this one. I've been waiting for this record to be released, and I'm super happy that it's out now.
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