Rating: 2/5
By defining their genre as ‘night music’, it feels as if Sunflower Bean are being deliberately vague and deflective: their mild blend of indie rock and psychedelia is devoid of nocturnal edge. Their latest single, ‘I Was A Fool’, is the kind of tune that you might listen to for a few minutes while flicking through radio stations on a tedious summer afternoon or hear dimly from the bedroom of an angsty teenager in a high-school TV drama.
Insipid is probably the most concise description of ‘I Was A Fool’: give it a while and it will fade nicely into the background, the languid pace creates an echoing melancholy that’s nice to dip in and out of but it lacks enough depth to actually be interesting. The dissonant guitar chords and thrumming bass create a one-dimensional timbre that the distorted vocals swirl around hazily, without much punch or conviction. It drips with nostalgia for the psychedelic rock of the 60s and 70s, which isn’t a bad thing, but its lack of inventiveness or willingness to explore the genre makes it a poor homage.
Image: Paul Hudson, Wikimedia CC (@pahudson Twitter)