The name of San Antonio rock ‘n’ roll outfit Sunjammer represents truth in advertising.
The group’s songs exhibit both a mellow disposition and a jammy quality that invites listeners to hang out for a while and soak it all in.
Sunjammer released its self-titled fourth album this Friday and has scheduled a drop party at the Lighthouse Lounge on Saturday, Nov. 29. With this release, it’s clear the band has settled into its groove and plans to follow it wherever it goes — genre be damned.
The five-piece group has been called anything from psych to proto-prog to indie-rock.
But for Sunjammer, those labels are just another artifice to strip away, another layer of the cosmic onion to peel back to arrive at the infinite. According to the band, the process takes the members where it will.
“What comes out might be soul sounds, rural rock, country funk, whatever direction the groove dictates,” Sunjammer said in an email to the Current. “The groove is paramount. Indifferent to the confines of genre, the goal is to make sounds that can sit next to the gems we unearth as avid listeners.”
The twang of Sunjammer’s guitars takes you down a dirt road, destination unknown. Never mind that they’re making these sounds in the nation’s seventh-largest city.
In the band’s own words, “there’s a breeze to it all. The whole album has some South Texas air.”
Caustic drawls cut through the instrumentation like paint thinner, provided by lead vocals traded off between Torin Metz and Joshua Bloodsworth.
But this ain’t no Lynyrd Skynyrd. Rather, it’s something of a fantasy scenario. What if a country boy did drugs and chilled the fuck out? What if his square-toed boots stepped through the doors of perception and tiptoed across the great cosmic prairie in the sky?
Wouldn’t we all be happier?
Psych-tinged country-rock crossover acts such as The Band and the Grateful Dead might provide the closest approximation for what Sunjammer is doing, and doing well. But Sunjammer brings something fresh to this idea, incorporating a variety of indie sensibilities that have entered the zeitgeist since The Band disbanded and the Dead was laid to rest.
Wilco, Modest Mouse, Dr. Dog and others also smile upon Sunjammer from the pantheon. But none of these influences quite get at the truth either. Maybe if we strip the artifice all the way down …
Sunjammer is a great band that just put out a great record, and you should listen to it immediately.
There we go.
In a further rejection of artifice, Sunjammer describes itself as “whole hog analog,” stating that “in a world of AI slop” its music is “optimized for nothing but a good hang.” To that refreshingly Luddite end, the group revealed that the new album will be available on vinyl later this month.
Though this 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 slow burn of a campfire.
Tracked live to tape at San Antonio studio Good Medicine with Justin Morris, the nine-track album is further embellished by Dailey’s flourishes on the studio’s vintage Hammond organ. Saxophone player Eddie Vasquez of San Antonio free jazz outfit The Whale also contributes controlled cacophony in the background of several tracks.
Stand outs on the album include “Lunch Break” as well as the already-released singles “I Wanna Quit” and “New Bird,” for which we’ve included the music video below. “Real One” and “Step Out Of Line” provide two of the album’s hardest-charging moments and offer contrasting peaks to the peaceful valleys of songs like “New Bird” or “Soul 69.” Other moments get funky and even touch on surf rock.
But, really, the whole release is gold, and should be listened to front to back — it’s only 39 minutes long, after all — preferably while digging your toes in the dirt and cracking a High Life.
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