Sunshine Blind – Liquid – Review

Sunshine Blind

Liquid (Energy)
by Kelly Ashkettle

This second offering from Sunshine Blind begins (like their first) with a prelude. The first track, “Chimera,” is a gauzy, instrumental strain so light it’s barely there, and yet it manages to evoke descending into a twisty stone passageway. Then “Neon” lurches from the shadows like a dragon from a dungeon, exhaling the full fire of Caroline Blind’s powerful voice. The chorus, which repeats, “Bright colors always fade,” makes “Neon” a perfect dark rock anthem, and yet it’s a refrain original enough and backed by enough power and energy to keep it far from the realm of Gothic cliches.

The third track, “Release,” is the album’s best, however. The guitar line ranges from shimmery distortion to power chords, and the vocals start out as a near whisper but build to a shout. Perfectly balanced by a slightly ominous bass and a strong drum beat, the song is an exercise in controlled power that builds and crests several times before it breaks. “This Longing,” on the other hand, takes the power chords and full-throated vocals a little too far over the top, trespassing almost into metal territory.

The remainder of the eleven tracks on Liquid are too subdued to be wholly remarkable, except for “I Ran.” Covering new wave songs has become a fad lately, often with mediocre results, but Sunshine Blind really capture the rhythm and feel of the Flock of Seagulls classic, while infusing it with uniquely dramatic intensity.

The album’s theme, water, is repeated in several ways. Most obvious are the lyrics of “Undercurrent,” with its half-drone of “like the waves drown in the ocean.” Words about water also appear in “Rain Spirit,” as well as “Neon,” with its Ring Around the Rosy mockery, “Waterfall, waterfall, we all fall down.” But more than words refer to water on this album: the music moves like liquid, too. The flow of individual songs rises and falls like a wave, as does the arrangement of the songs on the album as a whole.

Overall, this is a worthwhile effort by a band that deserves a larger audience than they will find in the shadows of the Gothic genre.