Unwinding by Sunglasz Vendor sounds as though something broke when it was dropped onto streaming services. Its melodies and songwriting are both infectious and splintered. Its three members share backgrounds in Bristol’s burgeoning experimental rock scene, playing in bands that sound as though they are creating grand sonic chains between the disparate genres that lay outside the immediate and accessible. Sunglasz Vendor doesn’t come across as a band with some grand concept underpinning their sound. Rather Sunglasz Vendor is an indie band that aims to do the same thing as any indie band – write some great songs. It’s just that they can’t quite kick some of that experimental streak.
That’s for the best though as it causes the collection of bitterly comedic ballads on Unwinding to have a deliciously fractured feel. Like early Pavement or Pixies, Sunglasz Vendor is an intensely well-listened set of musicians contorting their ideas and influences into bitingly catchy tracks. Their sound is a grand tour of indie rock’s many sites and vistas, with post-hardcore rhythms bumping up against jangle pop tunefulness, and pop-punk catharsis. Rather than relegating these sounds to single tracks or sections in songs Sunglasz Vendor wraps them all together into a shattering cacophony of mathy drums, propulsive basslines, and guitar fizz that sound like a Mercedes crashing into a station wagon. The songs move with a wry unpredictability jittering from choral musings to bone smashing breakdowns with a tightness that feels more natural than rehearsed. Like any great three-piece, Sunglasz Vendor has incredible musical chemistry. Each musician ricochets off the others whilst effortlessly filling the space with their distinct grooves. That chemistry prevents the track’s sudden shifts in tempo, mood, and style from feeling forced. Rather sudden noise breakdowns or bizarre percussive drum fills appear as natural signatures of their sound. Their developed chemistry allows moments such as the slow descending opener ‘Unwinding’ or the instrumental ‘(Unwinded)’ to come across as purposeful and interesting rather than mindless jamming.
The player’s unique styles and musicianship lead to Unwinding’s distinct contradiction. Its songs are at their core classic indie ballads with slacker verses and emotive breakdowns with the occasional wonky solo thrown in. But how these moments are achieved is bedazzlingly unconventional. Drummer Harry Irvine rattles the drums, each fill or beat sounds as if the whole kit is being torn apart and reconstructed whilst being played. Meanwhile, bassist Eve Rosenberg snakes through the beats to lay down propulsive and often doomy grooves that create tense uneasiness. At the core of it all is lead singer/guitarist Rafi Cohen who toes the line between the classic and experimental with incredible dexterity. His riffs sound like the meeting point between Built To Spill and Lightning Bolt, They’re brimming with melodies but how they’re executed is with a near no-wave flair. On ‘Brick King’ each riff sounds like a haywire screech, the guitar seeming to perpetually readjust itself before hitting a smatteringly catchy tone on the chorus. Cohen’s guitar playing consistently guides the band’s instrumentation towards unearthing new gold in genres otherwise mined to death. Lead single ‘Sophisticated Thief’ moves with the lackadaisical rhythms of bedroom pop but feels uncanny thanks to the rhythm sections’ sudden bursts and the endlessly entangled twangs of Rafi’s strings.
That element of recognisable sounds being executed with an experimental uncertainty reflects the album’s tone. Unwinding is an album that plays with nostalgia but rather than resurrecting it through hypnagogia Sunglasz Vendor instead shatters the dreams of adolescence. Cohen’s lyrics are stuck firmly in the malaise of adulthood meditating on failures to find intimacy, employment, and purpose in the modern world. The band’s sound of classic nineties rock contorted into uncanny sonic clutter, reflects the daydreams of teenagedom colliding with the grim realities of maturing. Cohen’s delivery carries a childlike tilt spoken with a slight tunefulness that gives an innocence to his poetic musings that further flavours their misery. Throughout the songs a recurring choir of Bristol musicians provides backing vocals that reach out to escape from the dull reality of day-to-day living. Even Cohen appears near the point of tearing it all down, often erupting into Midwest emo-style screeches that tear through the mix. His screams break past the melancholia and experimentalism that line the album to highlight the core of Unwinding’s post-adolescence slacker rock vision. While the album is concerned with nostalgia it isn’t aiming to be nostalgic rather it’s cathartic. Taken all together it’s a defiant scream against the toils of daily adult life, one delivered through the repurposed sounds of youth. But the album never attempts to recreate these sounds, rather Sungalsz Vendor brings them to the present day kicking and screaming through a mesh of brilliantly twisting vocals and instrumentation.
