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Mar 28, 2018 Web Exclusive By Michael Watkins

Upon the release of their debut album in 2016, there didn’t appear to be a lot to shout about in regard to Sunflower Bean. Hyped up, as with many a modern day band, their stylings felt neat and measured—hardly words you’d want associated with a first impression, especially as a band made up of three, all of whom were barely scraping twenty.

Nonetheless, that record—Human Ceremony—did enough to impress a fair smattering of listeners, to the point where the arrival of their sophomore release feels like an event in a way that so many follow-up releases simply do not.

It’s fair to say that there isn’t anything particularly revolutionary going on here but, at the very least, it must be recognized that the new album, Twentytwo in Blue, is a much more solid, much tighter all-round affair. For a start, as a listener, you are engaged from the start of the record, right until it’s very last note. As the 40-something minutes play out, and the 11 tracks that make up the album flow from one indie rocker into another, you can’t help but get swept up in the feeling of the record.

Tracks such as lead single “Crisis Fest” and “Twentytwo” offer up the best examples yet of the band’s underlying talent. The comparisons to Fleetwood Mac may seem obvious and a bit lazy, but there is certainly a lot more ground for them to be made here than there was on their first effort. A well-rounded and ultimately engaging listen, Twentytwo in Blue is (hopefully) just the start of the line for Sunflower Bean as they look to develop into one of this generation’s most interesting and chameleonic indie rock acts. (www.sunflowerbeanband.com)

Author rating: 7/10