Sunflower Bean are the moniker of the Brooklyn three piece, who have been successfully growing with each move they make. From being only just over a year old and releasing their first EP last year, Show Me Your Seven Secrets. Now, after tours with Wolf Alice and DIIV under their belt the band are releasing their full length debut, Human Ceremony.
Human Ceremony is a psychedelic blend of everything and anything, and it works. The steady pace of the opening title track, tricks the listener to fall into a trance state of pop bliss. This trance however is quickly disturbed with the second track Come on. A fast poppy tune with a myriad of influences, from Led Zeppelin styled guitars, to almost Minor Threat inspired drums as well as front-woman Julia Cummings vocals giving off a very Velvet Underground-esque vibe on this track, its quick, punchy and great.
This album is not an album that will grow stale by the end of the track listing. The single Wall-Watcher is a fantastic fuzzy pop song showing the band moving into heavier territory, but still keeping enough melody and pop sensibility to create an all round catchy tune.
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The track I Was at Home is a fantastic garage punk style track, reminding off a more cleanly produced FIDLAR. This track has absolutely incredible bass lines in the bridge section, filled with enough fuzz that id see it satisfy those into artists like Deap Valley or Ty Segall. I Was At Home shows just how fantastically versatile this band can be, with the track jumping from incredibly fuzzy rock to beautifully melodic, all while feeling smooth.
The album falls short a bit for me with the track after this, Creation Myth. I just feel this song compared with the rest of the album felt a bit lazily put together, the riff sounded quite dime-a-dozen, which is unfortunate because up until this point in the album I have barely any faults with the tracks. Again showing their versatility, Sunflower Bean with the track Oh, I Just Don’t manage, with fantastic subtlety blend folk and blues with the guitar on this track, with the guitarist twisting and bending the notes reminiscent of B.B. King, while still keeping the calm atmosphere of the short track.
Overall, I’m incredibly impressed with the album. Sunflower Bean have managed to make their abundances of influences clear, while still creating a completely unique experience in the way of a full length album. This album provides fantastic track after fantastic track (almost, anyway) and it makes me incredible excited to have discovered them, and discover what they will release in the future.
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