• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Apr 24, 2025 Web Exclusive By Andy Von Pip

For a while, it looked as though Mortal Primetime might never arrive. After a decade of shapeshifting through New York’s guitar music landscape, Sunflower Bean found themselves on uncertain footing, creatively, personally, existentially. That they’ve returned not just intact but emboldened feels like an act of quiet defiance. This fourth album doesn’t try to recapture old glories or retrofit them for the algorithm. Instead, it breathes slower, digs deeper, and steps back from the brink with a clarity that only time and maturity can bring.

Across their catalogue, the trio, Julia Cumming, Nick Kivlen, and Olive Faber, have always refused to settle into a singular aesthetic. Mortal Primetime is no exception, pulling in threads of shoegaze, Laurel Canyon folk, slow-burn Americana, and the kind of open-road rock balladry that sounds as if it’s been rescued from the dashboard tape deck of a car abandoned somewhere in Upstate New York.

Album opener “Champagne Taste”—a distorted, elastic indie rock track—acts almost as a bridge between this record and their previous release, 2022’s Headful of Sugar. From there, the album moves confidently through sonic terrain that feels both wildly eclectic and surprisingly cohesive. “Nothing Romantic” is Fleetwood Mac meets Heart reinvented for this unpredictable decade, shimmering with classic rock melodrama but grounded in lyrical modernity.

On the sublime “Take Out Your Insides” they lean into something more introspective: heartfelt, folky, and quietly devastating, with shades of Joni Mitchell drifting through the chorus. “Sunshine,” meanwhile, turns up the fuzz and veers straight into My Bloody Valentine territory, hazy, euphoric, and edge-of-feedback beautiful.

At one point, the band teetered on the edge of an existential brink. But Sunflower Bean have always shown a calm resilience, building everything from the ground up. They weren’t about to surrender their hard-won victories without a fight. That sense of upheaval and resolve runs through the album’s most intimate moments. Cumming’s vocals are heartfelt and electrifying, luminous, with a kind of reflective elegance. Less about projection, more about conviction and lived experience.

As a consequence Mortal Primetime doesn’t shout; it unfolds. Each melody carries its own quiet weight, revealing a band attuned to the power of restraint and the elegance of a well-placed hook. This isn’t a reinvention, it’s a reckoning, shaped by time, distance, and perspective. For a band who once questioned their future, this feels like a return made entirely on their own terms. (www.sunflowerbeanband.com)

Author rating: 8.5/10