Eclectic San Antonio rock band Sunjammer's new album follows the groove wherever it goes

Sunjammer is aptly named. The band's sun-drenched and jammy tunes take listeners to unexpected places. — Sunjammer is aptly named. The band’s sun-drenched and jammy tunes take listeners to sudden locations. Credit score: Courtesy Photograph / Sunjammer

The title of San Antonio rock ‘n’ roll outfit Sunjammer represents fact in promoting.

The group’s songs exhibit each a mellow disposition and a jammy high quality that invitations listeners to hang around for some time and soak all of it in.

Sunjammer launched its self-titled fourth album this Friday and has scheduled a drop celebration on the Lighthouse Lounge on Saturday, Nov. 29. With this launch, it’s clear the band has settled into its groove and plans to observe it wherever it goes — style be damned.

The five-piece group has been referred to as something from psych to proto-prog to indie-rock.

However for Sunjammer, these labels are simply one other artifice to strip away, one other layer of the cosmic onion to peel again to reach on the infinite. In keeping with the band, the method takes the members the place it is going to.

“What comes out is perhaps soul sounds, rural rock, nation funk, no matter route the groove dictates,” Sunjammer stated in an e mail to the Present. “The groove is paramount. Detached to the confines of style, the aim is to make sounds that may sit subsequent to the gems we unearth as avid listeners.”

The twang of Sunjammer’s guitars takes you down a mud highway, vacation spot unknown. By no means thoughts that they’re making these sounds within the nation’s seventh-largest metropolis.

Within the band’s personal phrases, “there’s a breeze to all of it. The entire album has some South Texas air.”

Caustic drawls reduce by means of the instrumentation like paint thinner, supplied by lead vocals traded off between Torin Metz and Joshua Bloodsworth.

However this ain’t no Lynyrd Skynyrd. Relatively, it’s one thing of a fantasy state of affairs. What if a rustic boy did medicine and chilled the fuck out? What if his square-toed boots stepped by means of the doorways of notion and tiptoed throughout the good cosmic prairie within the sky?

Wouldn’t all of us be happier?

Psych-tinged country-rock crossover acts comparable to The Band and the Grateful Useless may present the closest approximation for what Sunjammer is doing, and doing nicely. However Sunjammer brings one thing contemporary to this concept, incorporating quite a lot of indie sensibilities which have entered the zeitgeist since The Band disbanded and the Useless was laid to relaxation.

Wilco, Modest Mouse, Dr. Canine and others additionally smile upon Sunjammer from the pantheon. However none of those influences fairly get on the fact both. Possibly if we strip the artifice all the best way down …

Sunjammer is a good band that simply put out an incredible file, and it’s best to hearken to it instantly.

There we go.

In an extra rejection of artifice, Sunjammer describes itself as “entire hog analog,” stating that “in a world of AI slop” its music is “optimized for nothing however a great hold.” To that refreshingly Luddite finish, the group revealed that the brand new album can be out there on vinyl later this month.

Although that is Sunjammer’s fourth long-player, it marks the band’s true arrival.

Bloodsworth’s and Metz’s guitars and vocals are joined on the core instrumentation of the group by bassist Michael Nira, drummer Kyle DeStefano and keyboardist John Charles Dailey in a collective that has grown with the sluggish burn of a campfire.

Tracked dwell to tape at San Antonio studio Good Drugs with Justin Morris, the nine-track album is additional embellished by Dailey’s prospers on the studio’s classic Hammond organ. Saxophone participant Eddie Vasquez of San Antonio free jazz outfit The Whale additionally contributes managed cacophony within the background of a number of tracks.

Stand outs on the album embody “Lunch Break” in addition to the already-released singles “I Wanna Give up” and “New Chook,” for which we’ve included the music video under. “Actual One” and “Step Out Of Line” present two of the album’s hardest-charging moments and supply contrasting peaks to the peaceable valleys of songs like “New Chook” or “Soul 69.” Different moments get funky and even contact on surf rock.

However, actually, the entire launch is gold, and must be listened to entrance to again — it’s solely 39 minutes lengthy, in spite of everything — ideally whereas digging your toes within the filth and cracking a Excessive Life.