Over the last 3 decades Reptilian Records‘ extensive discography has brought us a number of thunderous releases, and we’re always on the lookout for new and exciting additions to their catalogue. Today’s special premiere is a forerunner of the newest album from Madison based post punkish noise rock band SINKING SUNS, and we’re pleased to give you its official premiere below. Listen to “Remember You Will Die” and learn more about “Bad Vibes” LP below.
Here’s what the band’s bassist and vocalist Dennis Ponozzo had to say about the inspiration behind the track:
” The song came about after reminiscing about one of the last times I saw my brother before he died. I was looking at old photos of him and remembering when we drove to a local “ghost light” in Michigan one night called The Paulding Light. It was a warm summer night. Looking at the photos I thought to myself how he was clueless in the photos that his number would soon be up. I was clueless. We all were. It’s mainly a reminder of all of our mortality. “
Cover art by Nick DiFabbio. Pre-order HERE.
“We tend to be dark and write about things on the negative side” understates Dennis Ponozzo (bassist/vocalist) of Madison, WI trio Sinking Suns. A chilling example of this resides in new single “No Remains” which Ponozzo says was influenced by “a night I shot a buck in sub-zero temps with a muzzleloader. I only got a gut shot and had to track him for miles with my 12 year old son in the middle of the night. Wolves surrounded us and howled. We almost got lost. The blood trail disappeared in a snowstorm and it was lost forever.”
Hailing from the same rugged clime as bands such as Kildozer and striking distance from Am Rep’s ground zero, Sinking Suns roots drink from the same filthy musical ground-water of bottom-scraping noise-rock. In addition to the grit and grime of that genre, Ponozzo, Scott Udee (guitar) and Gabe Johnson (drums) write songs that incorporate a creeping surf-guitar influence at times and a scuzzy sense of vocal melody throughout.
Forthcoming release Bad Vibes artwork is adorned with a washed out depiction of a werewolf who looks like he is about to leap through the cover to tear into the listener’s jugular vein. Ponozzo cryptically mentions that the theme of wolves and the wolf-man resurface throughout the album.
Existing for more than a decade, Sinking Suns have traversed the mid-west sharing stages with such artists as Hammerhead, Chrome, Child Bite, Skull Defekts and The Crosses (Die Kreuzen). The band has previously self-released a 7”, a 10” EP, and the Death Songs CD (2016).
From the state that birthed Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, Die Kreuzen, Killdozer and The Crucifucks, Wisconsin has now delivered a new form of off kilter dread, the aptly titled Bad Vibes album by Madison’s chosen sons, the Sinking Suns. There’s an atmospheric dread to this album, anchored in place by rolling, gut-heavy bass, and overlaid with creepy, controlled minor chord guitar spikes and slashes. Bad Vibes is nothing if not the sound of an under-dressed man plowing through upper Midwestern snow drifts either in search of, or on the run from something awful, driven through darkness, driven through cold, driven mad. These eleven songs harken to Steel Pole Bathtub’s tom-centric rhythms and Hammerhead’s haunted lyrical isolation, with textural nods to Scratch Acid, massive, wide low end, propulsive drumming, and tunefully distorted vocals. After several self-released albums/EPs, Bad Vibes shows an experienced trio in clear, brutal command of this lumbering beast we call noise rock, shifting its geographic center a few states east, with a bellow and howl that could only be crafted in the state of Wisconsin.
Sinking Suns have traversed the mid-west sharing stages with such artists as Hammerhead, Chrome, Child Bite, Skull Defekts and The Crosses (Die Kreuzen). The band has previously self-released a 7”, a 10” EP, and the Death Songs CD (2016).
