Review: Sunwise – Crime Gardens

Welcome to my inaugural review for Clean and Sober Stoner!

This is your local Chaosmonaut, Joe Turmes reporting in on a new release from a new band called Sunwise. This band is a shoegaze/post-rock/post-hardcore outfit from Champaign, Illinois that describe their LP “Crime Gardens” as one that would appeal to fans of HUM, Shiner, Failure, Spotlights, Trauma Ray and Cloakroom, utilizing “Champaign’s big guitars, Kansas City’s dissonance, and Chicago’s aggression”.

This caught my eye, as I am a huge fan of HUM, and anytime a comparison pops up, I am obliged to check it out. Not often do I find an album that scratches the itch quite like HUM does, so “Crime Gardens” has a lot to live up to.

Sunwise – Crime Gardens

From the opening track Graveyard of the Nation, I am taken aback by the production quality and the hugeness of the rhythm guitars, paired with a clean lead guitar that evokes a similar atmosphere as HUM’s Inlet, that then transitions into a quiet and clean dynamic shift. It was not long before the big atmosphere returned, continuing the theme of big guitars and big sound.

The second song, The Smallest City, starts with a catchy vocal hook that has been stuck in my head over the last week, singing “There’s been an accident”, that sticks out as a particular highlight on the album. On this track, the drums start to stand out as a defining feature of the band, and continue to shine throughout the record.

As the record continues on, the vocal hooks become less apparent and the instrumentation becomes the highlight, specifically the drumming. Compositionally, the entire record is interesting, utilizing excellent use of quiet/loud dynamics, samples, and occasional keyboard. The rhythm guitars and bass are less focused on riffage like HUM is, instead providing a contextual backdrop for the dynamics, the lead guitar lines, the vocals and the drums. This evokes a feel more reminiscent to Spotlights or Holy Fawn, while the vocals tend to stay low in the mix.

As I have been listening to this album and performing some cursory research on the band, I am shocked to see how new and unknown they are; a band with this level of production and song writing should have a lot more than 8 (9- ed.) monthly listeners on Spotify, and I would have expected a few more albums from any band before reaching this level of maturity.

Overall I can’t help but feel that this album is beautifully constructed and executed, and I feel very fortunate to catch a band like this before they grow into something far bigger.