The Sun Explodes have been putting out their personal blend of progressive metal DIY style for six years now and 2015 isn’t seeing them slow down in the slightest. Aside from travelling the length and breadth of the country playing any bar, bedroom or back alley that will have them, the band have been busy in the studio and the result is ‘The Calm, The Storm’. Following up ‘13’s ‘We Build Mountains’, the band will be hoping the EP has the power to propel them to the next level up the musicsphere. Sad to say, but inconsistency is one of ‘The Calm, The Storm’’s real downfalls. Throughout the EP’s five tracks, the band never really get out of third gear. Opener ‘The Calm’ does bounce with lingering djent vibes but feels half-baked and flimsy while on the other hand ‘The Unnatural’ floats with progressively poppy feelings and makes for the EP’s clear highlight. The Sun Explodes are very much a band with a story to tell and the attempted grandeur and glimmers of deep thought of their music exhibits that clearly. It’s just at times that the vision that the band clearly has doesn’t always live up to the reality that is on show making for some potentially engaging but overall disheartening listening.
Halfway through and things start to get a little bit messier. ‘The Grand Design’ mismatches techy beats with grating off key vocals and sticks around longer than it really needs to, as does ‘I Walk Alone’ that just doesn’t have the right content to stand up with its pretty intentions and angsty riffs. Piano led closer ‘Storm Of Light’ brings in tinkering ambience and choral chants and finishes things off with a melodic swoon but yet it’s not enough to stop the EP as a whole entity from being a rather inoffensively meandering 22 minutes.
Though it has its flash in the pan moments of thunderous rhapsody, ‘The Calm The Storm’ is a relatively beige affair. The Sun Explodes should be churning out high emotion and blistering heaviness by the bucketload yet they stand somewhere in the middle not wanting to commit too heavily to either party. The result is a set of songs that have the basework in for something wholeheartedly stirring but in reality comes out dull and underdeveloped. Perhaps the band still have that killer edge inside of them and it is just yet to rear its head. In that case the future may be looking bright for The Sun Explodes. For now though, it just feels as though they are going through the motions of monotony.
2.5/5
‘The Calm, The Storm’ by The Sun Explodes is out now.
The Sun Explodes links: Facebook|Twitter|Bandcamp
Words by Jack Rogers (@JackMRog)
