Welcome to the beginning of another year here on Static Sounds Club. I’m kicking off 2024 with an EP I have been really enjoying over my Xmas, Birthday and New Year break.
Regular readers will remember us discussing Scottish goth-tinged gazers Sun Shines Cold a few months back as they launched their debut album Echoes of a Former Life. The band have the power of Jesus and Mary Chain with subtlety and atmospherics of bands like Joy Division and The Cure. To close out 2023 the band decided to revisit four of their most popular singles for the remaster treatment as well as including two new songs for the Until The End EP.
I asked Colan Miles from the band to give us the lowdown on the EP.
“1991 Recordings set up a Bandcamp page for remixes remasters and joint ventures between artists. John (Wellby) suggested he remastered some of our early work for a release on this page and we decided that it would be good to add a couple of new tracks with a similar instrumental post rock/gaze vibe.”
“We picked ‘Blind’ and ‘Forty-Five’ as they were our first releases and were never really mastered anyway. ‘Lights’ because the instrumental is more powerful than the vocal version and ‘Silver’ because it was an afterthought put on the end of our Black of Beyond EP however when we released the video it got 65,000 plays on YouTube. We know we must have lucked out on an algorithm but it seems quite a few folks liked it. We think the remasters give the tracks a real lift.”
The EP opens with two new songs. First up is the title track. To my mind the bands most accomplished composition to date. Theres a great use of dynamics throughout as we veer from chiming goth guitars into a fuzzed-out wall of sound. Its stadium sized throughout and when that chorus section hits, it hits hard. The two guitar lines play off each other beautifully creating a real ear candy moment.
That’s followed by ‘Where We End and You Begin’. We enter post rock territory with the slow burn of the atmospheric intro section slowly blossoming into the chiming call and response of the guitars. The closing moments, a quiet crescendo, a fitting end to this beautiful number.
‘Silver’ opens on the effected bass, echoing some lost Cure song or Cocteau Twins moment. The guitars and drums working in tandem to build the foundation for the wash of reverb. Like a great wave hitting the shore the song explodes into life and ebbs and flows, much like the tide.
From the ocean to the wintery expanse of ‘Lights’ next as the glacial synths and guitars build an icy world of spiky guitar and sheets of thunderous bass. This is one of the most dramatic Sun Shines Cold tracks with its very definite drum beat and contrasting guitar lines playing off each other.
‘Forty Five’ warms things up with its gentile opening section like the embers of a fire. The moment this track catches flame and bursts into the most majestic bonfire of tumbling synths and guitar. It really takes your breath away.
The EP closes on the forward leaning ‘Blind’. This driving track leads with a pulsing bassline before the rest of the band slowly join in to create a real journey of a song. You feel the passage of miles as we travel at speed through the undulating tones and catchy riffs. It’s a great way to finish because you’re left wanting more and that means heading back to the start for another play.
The Until The End EP is, once again, a powerful collection of songs that only reinforce the high regard I hold for Sun Shines Cold. The darkness in their music is always tempered by an optimistic note which always catches me unawares making me smile.
You can grab a digital copy of the Until The End EP from the 1991 Recordings Bandcamp page now.
You can follow Sun Shines Cold on social media here…
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