ALBUM REVIEW: All These Darlings And Now Me – Sunflo’er

If hardcore is about doing things your own way then you can put a massive green tick next to SUNFLO’ER. The now-quartet from Potsdam, New York have never shown much interest in sticking to the confines of one particular sub-genre or another, preferring instead to pick and choose elements from across scenes and decades for a chaotic yet cohesive mix that feels wholly their own. They’re quite screamy, pretty mathy and invariably visceral, but they also draw arguably more melodic influences from the realms of hard rock, emo, post-rock and punk – to name just a few. All These Darlings And Now Me is their third full-length album and it arrives this Friday in a tight 27-minute package delivered by the increasingly dependable Dark Trail Records.

This album is SUNFLO’ER’s first release with vocalist Jeff Lyszczarz, with these duties previously shared between the band’s long-time core trio of Ethan Shantie, Carter Jones and Jim Doran. The new recruit makes himself at home from the off, instantly seizing the listener’s attention in opener Straight To VHS as he raucously repurposes the chorus of the much-covered classic rock track Drift Away. The track soon erupts into a bonafide rager – one that the band themselves quite accurately place somewhere between THIN LIZZY and CURSED. If you’re looking for an easier reference point, then EVERY TIME I DIE feels like a good shout here and throughout too, especially on tracks like Cryptfucker and 7 Trumpets In Arizona which inject plenty of hard rock swagger into the band’s bracing hardcore sound.

Behind Lyszczarz, the rest of the band remain utterly compelling throughout. They absolutely nail that essential middle ground where things feel appropriately tight and co-ordinated, while also just loose enough to give the impression that it could all come flying off the rails at any moment. The production suits them well too, again giving off a relatively raw and live feel, but never to the point of absurdity or unlistenability.

The real winner here though is just how well SUNFLO’ER manage to hold all the different elements of their sound together in a way that always feels true to who they are as a band. In others’ hands, the mournful post-rocky instrumental Here Ends The Road And Days and the raging sub-90-second Big City Shotgun wouldn’t work right next to each other in the track list, and yet here they do. In fact, and if anything, the relative respite of the former only sharpens the stabby fury of the latter. Elsewhere, there’s the aforementioned 7 Trumpets In Arizona – another big-riff rager, but one which ends on a good minute or so of buzzing noisy ambience to offer something of a reflective break before the record rolls onto the home straight of Someday You Will Control The Birds and the closing title track.

That closer finishes the album brilliantly, its typically chaotic first half moving into an expansive and cathartic post-hardcore sing-along that draws a fitting conclusion to a record that never fails to fly by. SUNFLO’ER may tip their hats to a few bands you should have heard before, but not only do they draw from all the right places, they do so with enough variation and craft of their own to ensure that All These Darlings And Now Me never feels derivative. This is another impressive offering from a relatively hidden gem in today’s diverse hardcore scene, one that could and should mark SUNFLO’ER out as an inspiring and influential prospect of their own.

Rating: 8/10

All These Darlings And Now Me is set for release on September 2nd via Dark Trail Records.

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