Sleepy Sun

Embrace (Sol Diamond)

Comments (0) By John O'Neill Wednesday, Aug 20 2008

More About

Music is so damn finite, and it's all been done before, and there's nothing left to say anyhow, and everybody knows it. But then something like Spacemen 3, or the Jesus and Mary Chain, or the Brian Jonestown Massacre happens along and suddenly what's old is new again, as if an unknown scale has been discovered. Like the aforementioned ghosts, San Francisco's Sleepy Sun is one of those every-so-often bands that absorbs, processes, and spits out its influences in such a way as to make pee run down the pants legs of music reviewers everywhere. From the heavy-thunder freakout of "New Age" through the gospel-tinged lament of "Lord" to the straight-up bad trip on "White Dove," the band's lysergic emanations, delivered through copper plumbing, are all flowery footpaths, winding streams of Robitussin, and nitroglycerine shrieks. They are designed to explode the most expanded of frontal lobes. Even the annoying parts resonate, so it's better just to sit back and wait for the moment you missed to finally broadside you as revelation. Because that's exactly what an album like this promises.

So let the urine flow, the keyboard clatter, and the hyperbole fly, because label bidding wars, British magazine covers, and funny-sounding European festivals just might await, at least until the wheels fall off, as they always do. Till then, let Sleepy Sun lead us up and over the wall, straight into the heart of beautiful chaos.