SUNNERS – The Debut EP and Post-Hardcore Abrasion.
SUNNERS – Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Post-Hardcore à la Baltimore.
Baltimore is on the list of cities I would like to visit when I eventually get stateside, primarily because of what I hear of it’s music scene. Over the last few years I’ve been introduced to many bands from and that have played in the area, via friends in the city and that has only enticed me further.
One such project that I’ve been waiting for since I was sent a rough and ready demo back in November 2015, is the debut self-titled EP from four-piece SUNNERS, which was luckily recently released before Musically Fresh goes on hiatus later this month. We’ll be back don’t worry, but for now it’s all about SUNNERS.
You’re immediately hit with classic Post-Hardcore layers and Math-Rock time signatures before the more modern down-tempo Hardcore Punk breakdowns to a scrappy yet precise Post-Hardcore time signatures take over.
‘A Good Source Of Teeth For Gravel’ and ‘Sorrel’ may only be positions one and two, but lay down the intensity of the band’s music and emotional charge immediately, in unison as much as they do standalone.
Old-school stylistics filtered through their modern counterparts in plain sight.
SUNNERS try their hand at a more Post-Rock/Post-Metal led sound in ‘Interlude’, which in it’s almost entirely instrumental from, holds the force of the previous two tracks at bay, but with enough seeping through in the latter parts to remind you this still more discord en route.
‘An Accident In A Field’ begins with more soft Math-Rock guitar layers before the heavier screams are somewhat diluted so they don’t contrast too much to the more playful instrumentation. The track as whole forsakes the raw intensity of the previous three, and while still sounding like the same band, conjures the image of the band playing a Baltimore house show with the audience enthralled through every complexity.
‘[…] don’t let me fade away from – what the truth is, it was fatal.’
The EP I thought I was getting has only partially presented itself, the aggression is as I expected but its much more intense in a way I wasn’t expecting. Vocally the emotion is accosting you but it’s musical counterpart is playing “good and very complex cop” along side it and by the EP’s end, seems to have persuaded “very angry cop” into an almost even partnership.
‘Wandering Sickness’ is the best example of this and sits very well with the statement SUNNERS give us on the release of this EP. – ‘As a band we are very proud of this sonic material and we feel eternally grateful to the individuals that helped make this breathe.’
It is a proudness you can feel throughout the EP, you may have, at the back of your mind, desired an increased tempo from the beginning but that want soon fades through the musicianship and obvious effort this debut EP is the product of. ‘Wandering Sickness’ doesn’t need too to show off the band as musicians by this point but it does and its a welcome end.
Find the band below:
#StayFresh
