Album Premiere & Review: Sun Voyager, Sun Voyager
[Click play above to stream Sun Voyager’s Sun Voyager in its entirety. Album is out tomorrow, Oct. 7, on Ripple Music.]
A decade after they started writing songs for their first demo, New York State cosmic grunge rockers Sun Voyager offer their self-titled second album as their first outing through Ripple Music. Momentum is the key. Where their 2018 full-length debut, Seismic Vibes (review here), launched at a medium pace before hitting the space-rock sprint of “Open Road” and “Caves of Steel,” Sun Voyager both picks up where that album left off, starting with a jam on Seismic Vibes finale “God is Dead” which, as “God is Dead II,” introduces new melodic complexity to the immediately far-outbound progression of swirling guitars and, crucially, rhythmic thrust.
The returning-perhaps-for-the-last-time trio of guitarist/vocalist Carlos Francisco — his role has of late been filled by Christian Lopez, and indications are that will continue, though the situation seems fluid and no grand announcements have been made — bassist/keyboardist/backing vocalist Stefan Mersch, and drummer Kyle Beach offer radical thrust throughout the new seven-song/32-minute, basic-tracks-recorded-live blazer, giving Philly’s Ecstatic Vision a run for their alien currency in terms of building and maintaining a throughline of motion in and between their pieces, while still allowing each enough breadth to make an individual impression. That is, “Run for Your Life,” which follows “God is Dead II,” is fast, but that doesn’t mean it’s immediately forgettable, and the same holds true for the effects-soaked “Some Strange,” which is one of just two cuts to pass the five-minute mark; the other is the jammy slowdown moment “Feeling Alright” on side B.
It’s not that Sun Voyager — I’m having a hard time not calling the album Sunny V, so I hope you’ll please bear with me if one slips through — isn’t dynamic or doesn’t let you breathe. Both “Some Strange” and “Feeling Alright” have comedown parts, the former in the bass-led groove that builds off the final chorus and rides out the last minute and a half or so, and the latter in a midsection build where Beach‘s drums hold the tension in such a way as to reassure that the Nebula-style wah blastoff will return before the finish, which, like atomic clockwork, it does.
But the prevailing vibe throughout is that Sunny V — whoops — is a ripper, and having “Rip the Sky” as a centerpiece feeds into that in a manner that feels like a purposeful turn from some of the mellower psychedelia Sun Voyager have offered in the past, either on the first album or 2015’s Lazy Daze EP (review here), splits with Greasy Hearts (discussed here) and The Mad Doctors (review here) in 2014 and 2016, respectively, and the 2013 demo Mecca (review here) that helped establish their penchant for v-i-b-e vibes and lysergic push alike.
Could be the times, could just be this batch of tunes, or it could be the band sat down and had a formal-dress meeting and were like, “we’re gonna play faster songs now and it’s gonna have more keys and be more freaked out and blah blah blah time to make new t-shirts,” I don’t know, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter, but it’s true nonetheless. And, as they handled some of the recording themselves amid the process of building their own studio — basic tracks were done live with Paul Ritchie at New Future in Belmar, NJ, with vocals, guitar overdubs, keys, etc., added at their place after; crucially, the band mixed themselves, and that’s not a negative — Sun Voyager sizzles with intent whether a given part of a given song is fast or slow, but at no point sounds overwrought, whether it’s the all-go sunshine guitar and organ heavy psych in the back half of “Rip the Sky” or the more low-end-minded, dripping-wet boogie of “To Hell We Ride,” the bikers-in-space spirit and it’s-about-freedom-baby guitar solo of which feel definitive.
That they’re moving toward self-recording is interesting in terms of speculating what they might do on an eventual third LP — not to mention the (potentially permanent) lineup change — but their doing so is already playing a significant role here. Whether it’s “Feeling Alright” reaching the top of Olympus Mons with its melodic apex in the second half or closer “The Vision” building off the earlier shoves in “Run for You” and “Some Strange” to set up a broader nod in its still-a-wash finish for the album, the chief accomplishment of Sun Voyager circa Sun Voyager is to be uptempo without sounding like they’re in a rush. The way “The Vision” seems to ooze and bounce reminds a bit of Slift and the radiated punk of Misfits‘ “Hybrid Moments” in its turning declension, but that goes back to the idea of momentum and the physicality of the music. Consider even the titles — “Run for You,” “Rip the Sky,” “To Hell We Ride” — that put the verbs right out there. Action words for action psych.
Like the rest of everybody’s everything, there’s no real telling what the future might hold for Sun Voyager, but if their self-titled demonstrates anything at all it’s that the band is capable of maintaining control of what they’re doing even when working at maximum flux. The synthy/maybe-theremin twists in “Some Strange” and the organ-born realization of “Feeling Alright” are by no means the only examples of the trio/sometimes-four-piece — Seth Applebaum of Ghost Funk Orchestra has sat in live on multiple occasions and contributes photography here, so is involved — using the cohesive underpinning of that live-tracked guitar, bass and drums as a springboard into more expansive fare, and the fact that they’re able to hit that balance in a way that sounds so natural whether a given part is fast or slow(er), raucous or subdued, is an analog for their larger creative growth. They may be holding onto the steering apparatus of a flying saucer careening through an ion storm, but they’re holding on. That feels an awful lot like burgeoning maturity.
Suits them, if these songs are anything to go by. They don’t stick around here long enough to really test attention spans, but neither is Sunny V — there I go again — a flash and gone. Rather, even after “The Vision” has landed like a NASA satellite crashing into an asteroid, the resonance of the guitar, vocal echo and even the overarching forward urgency remains. This is a credit to craft as well as performance, and will only continue to serve Sun Voyager well after this release as they step out once more into the grand unknown. In the meantime, they are a boon to East Coast US psychedelic heavy both for the rawness of their aural amplitude and the expanses they use that to foster, and this is their finest work to-date.
Great spacey, weedy album. Thanks