Coming 04.10.12 (The End Records)
On this, the third album from Northern California psych-meisters Sleepy Sun, the band has traded big Led Zep-style long tunes for shorter and more accessible tunes. But don’t think this is a band abandoning their style for a Metallica-Black Album cash grab – this is a record full of wonderful moments and manages to distill the good things about their music into a package that short-attention-spanned assholes can understand.
Spine Hits feels like a Meat Puppets album: they take familiar rock structures and paint a fucked-up, water-color-y and acid-y picture atop it. It’s accessible, but not really at the same time. Sleepy Sun are doing this on purpose – toying with our ears. Nothing here is bold or redefining rock music or just that, but it’s nice to hear a rock band play palatial music that feels a little pilled-up. This record is a few Xanax, wrapped up in a delicious burrito and then fed to me on a Friday night. Not that it’s happened to me, but I imagine if I did that and then went to see Dinosaur Jr., it would sound like Sleepy Sun.
Sure these aren’t nine-minute epics – the longest song on Spine Hits tops out at just over six minutes – but Sleepy Sun have made a record that feels as wide open as the west that they come from.
— By Jason Bugg of The Bugg Blog, a freelance writer who has a wife, a bad rental home, two dogs, four cats, no kids, clinical depression and terribly strong thighs for a white man.
Spine Hits Tracklist
01. Stivey Pond
02. She Rex
03. Siouxsie Blaqq
04. Creature
05. Boat Trip
06. V.O.G.
07. Martyr’s Mantra
08. Still Breathing
09. Yellow End
10. Deep War
11. Lioness (Requiem)
Sleepy Sun 2012 Tour Dates
03/07 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Catalyst Atrium
03/08 – Los Angeles, CA @ Echo*
03/09 – Flagstaff, AZ @ Monte Vista Lounge
03/10 – Scottsdale – AZ @ The Rogue Bar*
03/11 – Santa Fe, NM @ VFW Hall *
03/12 – El Paso,TX @ Low Brow Palace*
03/13 – San Antonio, TX @ The Korvoa Basement *
03/18 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada *
03/20 – Kansas City, MO @ Record Bar
03/21 – Lincoln, NE @ Bourbon Theatre
03/22 – Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
03/23 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
03/24 – Reno, NV @ St. James Infirmary %
* = w/ Crystal Antlers
% = w/ The Soft White Sixties
