Sun Blood Stories will release their fifth album, Shadow Loud, on Oct. 4. It is their first studio long-player since 2019’s Haunt Yourself (review here), and follows a move from Boise, Idaho, to Portland, Oregon — also the plague, rising tide of fascism and whathaveyou; it’s been quite a half-decade — and I can’t help but have in my head the repeated line from “Secret Cathedral” as intoned by guitarist Ben Kirby and slide guitarist/noisemaker Amber Pollard, the ‘hook’ as much as it’s a hook, that anchors the song, “Now and then we need to be unmade,” as it seems to speak to the album and the band itself, and no, that’s not just about moving to Oregon, lineup changes, or reconciling with one’s identity through creative craft.
All of that is happening in the 36-minute 10-tracker engineered by Kirby and mixed/mastered by Z.V. House at Rabbit Brush Audio, but there are according shifts in style in the material itself, from mellow desert driftgaze to the industrial noise culminating “Brand New Ghost Town,” the heart poured into Pollard‘s vocals on opener “All You’ve Got is Time” — a resonant initial showcase that’s like a status-update for impulses through which the band has worked all along — to the screaming wash of intensity into which “No One’s Blessed” builds as a singular moment of emotional catharsis for the album as a whole, no less so for the mostly-minimalist minute and a half of “Tear You Apart” right before. “Fossil Family” references Buddy Holly, because of course it does, and “Blood Memory” becomes a consuming delve of low end with manipulated slide guitar and vocals cutting through. The band — Pollard, Kirby, bassist Nik Kososik, guitarist Aaron Clark, and drummer Sailor Sigritz — havesun blood stories (Photo by Mike Sell) never been short on experimentalism in any incarnation, and when they launch a freakout, they mean it.
Business as usual, then? Weird stays weird, move along people, nothing to see here? Not quite. This is where that idea of being unmade comes into play, because part of what Shadow Loud does is tear down preconceived notions of what Sun Blood Stories songs do. For sure, and as noted, there are elements that have been there from the start, of course, whether it’s the psychedelic lean of “Fossil Family” — it’s Pollard on the flute — or the Americana-tinged sway of the penultimate “Echoes All Lost,” which follows “No One’s Blessed” and stays more reserved in its payoff, or the finale “Lost in Red” seeming to answer back to “All You’ve Got is Time” with the lines, “All the time is all the time, they say/There is time and it’s too late.” I don’t know if there’s a conclusion in that sentiment, if there’s some actual answer to it, but I think part of the point might be that there isn’t. Shadow Loud, which lives up to the title in atmospheric flourish, isn’t about offering platitudes anymore than it’s about playing it safe stylistically. There’s soul-bearing and despair and joy and love and creativity and all these things, but there’s also no getting away from the troubled backdrop it’s set against. This willingness to not solve a thing, to be vulnerable as well as self-declarative, becomes an essential characteristic of the work.
An emotive stripping-down, maybe, is the unmaking. But not stripping-down in the sense of getting rid of a thing, casting it away, like how “Falling in Feelings” eschews arrangement complexity for a cinematic backing drone and a vocal showcase. This is more about the catharsis, a kind of pulling yourself apart through music and performance. Sun Blood Stories wouldn’t be the first band to try to break themselves with sound, and I’m not sure it’s anything so violent or melodramatic here, either. It feels more like personal growth accounting for its own cost as you make your way through the varied procession of tracks, and if they’ve collectively or individually been unmade, what’s followed is a remaking of self resulting in a bolder incarnation manifest through cathartic release. If you’re willing to open your mind to it, it’s a powerful and affecting listen, whether a given moment is sweetly crooned or abrasively shoved in your face. It’s all part of the same expression that unites the songs across Shadow Loud, and true to everything Sun Blood Stories have released up to this point in their tenure, risks are taken and rewards are vibrant.
— The Obelisk
credits
released October 4, 2024
Vocals, Slide Guitar, Flute – Amber Pollard
Vocals, Guitar, Slide Guitar, Bass, Keys, Percussion – Ben Kirby
Bass, Guitar – Nik Kososik
Drums, Percussion – Wade Ronsse
Tape Effects – Matt Stone
Vocal Sample – Anna Wiley
Mixed and Mastered by Z.V. House at Rabbit Brush Audio
Engineered by Ben Kirby
Produced by Sun Blood Stories
Artwork by Kirsten Furlong and Amber Pollard
Sun Blood Stories 