Sunstinger – Spare Me The Rapture EP

My first proper encounter with Sunstinger came through ‘Bonnies Kaleidoscope’ in the summer of 2021. Its mix of atmosphere, weight and melody gave me every reason to champion this Scottish five piece on my DKFM show. I finally put that relationship into words recently when ‘Spare Me the Rapture’ arrived as the first single from their eponymous third EP. That song introduced a faster and heavier version of Sunstinger, although hearing it within the full six track sequence reveals how much further the band have travelled. Following Beyond the Frame and Worthless, Spare Me the Rapture feels like the next act in a continuing story. Taylor Wright, David McCulloch, Scott Gourlay and Bill Anderson are joined by drummer Colm Boyle, who entered the band at the beginning of 2026. His arrival has given Sunstinger a fresh rhythmic force, while the writing now carries a stronger sense of purpose across the entire record.

The band’s surroundings remain central to their music. Sunstinger come from areas of Scotland marked by industrial decline, where empty sites sit alongside the natural growth gradually taking their place. Those locations feed into an EP concerned with endurance, memory and the strange comfort people can find within unhappy circumstances. That idea guided Wright’s writing over an extended period.

 You can hear the benefit of that approach in the way these six songs connect. The EP has been conceived as a complete piece, with its own beginning, middle and end. Each track occupies a different point within that emotional movement, while recurring guitar treatments, vocal details and rhythmic decisions hold everything together.

‘Zerosum’ begins in a gathering mass of noise. Chiming guitar chords soon emerge and offer a brief sense of openness before the full band closes in. The arrangement works through sharp changes in pressure, with the early clarity giving way to quicker guitar strikes and a huge covering of fuzz. Sunstinger’s three guitarists create density while preserving movement inside the mix. Individual lines appear behind the main chords, then recede before you can fully locate them. Wright sings from within, giving voice to the numb repetition of days that appear to lead nowhere.‘Zerosum’ begins the EP with the feeling of being trapped inside a cycle whose total always returns to the same figure.

Having already written about ‘Spare Me the Rapture’ as a single, I wondered whether its impact would change once placed inside the record. Its position immediately after ‘Zerosum’ makes its directness even more effective. Guitar phrases answer each other through the opening section while Bill Anderson’s bass gives the three guitar parts a firm centre. Boyle’s rapid snare announces the chorus and Wright’s “But I don’t care, so take me there” becomes the EP’s largest vocal hook. The guitars carry fuzz, reverse reverb and modulated tones, yet the melody remains easy to follow. Glasgow’s industrial character informs the lyrics, viewed through the eyes of someone trying to understand where they belong.

‘Deathdrive’ keeps the momentum moving through drums that carry a strong punk energy. Boyle drives the introduction forward before the verse changes the atmosphere completely. The guitars become hazier and more fluid around Wright’s vocal, while the rhythm continues underneath with an uneasy persistence. Later, the tempo begins to slow and the guitar parts lose their clean outlines, breaking into strange fragments that suggest perception starting to fail. Sunstinger use the arrangement to place you inside that state rather than describing it from a safe distance.

Droning loops open ‘I Half Remember’ and reset the pace. Acoustic guitar supplies the percussion, giving the song a more exposed foundation than anything preceding it. Electric guitar tones overlap beneath the vocal until their separate edges become difficult to identify. The softer arrangement gives Wright’s voice more room, while the surrounding effects keep the song suspended between recollection and invention. Certain images seem familiar, then their meaning changes as another line arrives beside them. Yes you can make parallels to My Bloody Valentine in the way the guitars blur pitch and texture, but Sunstinger use that technique very much in service of their own central idea.

‘Barely Here’ grew through the full band, beginning with Wright’s demo before each member added to it during rehearsals and recording. That shared development can be heard in the slow burn of its opening. Textural sounds enter first, followed by a solitary kick drum that quietly prepares you for the increase in weight. When the guitars arrive, they sound broad and physical, with enough space around them for Anderson’s coarse bass tone to register fully. His connection with Boyle’s kick gives the track its muscle. Around the midpoint, the band reduces the pressure and holds the song in check for a moment. The release comes through every instrument at once, followed by the chorus returning with a sense of release.

An eerie drum sound announces ‘Always Green’, with reversed treatments adding an unnatural edge to Boyle’s playing. The production suits lyrics rooted in Wright’s experiences of sleep paralysis, where awareness returns before the body follows. Sunstinger translate that state through sounds that appear recognisable while behaving in unfamiliar ways. Drums seem to move backwards into themselves and guitars occupy the uncertain space between waking thought and lingering dream. The track closes the EP by returning to the relationship between people and their environment, although the surroundings here feel internal.

Across these six songs, Sunstinger find new possibilities within the sound they have developed since Beyond the Frame. The EP examines the ways people make a home inside sadness, painting their walls and learning the contours of an environment they cannot easily leave. Spare Me the Rapture presents a band choosing to remain fully present in the difficult moment, and that choice gives this third chapter its lasting strength. Salvation can wait. Sunstinger have found their rapture.

Spare Me the Rapture is released on August 15. You can check it out over on the Sunstinger Bandcamp page. You can grab a copy on vinyl from the bands Big Cartel page.

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