SUNROT, hailing from New Jersey, just dropped their first full-length album with Prosthetic Records, titled The Unfailing Rope. Consisting of eight tracks that blend sludge and noise to create a devastating experience, despite encountering multiple setbacks during recording – including vocalist Lex Santiago’s hospitalization due to a psychotic episode, the final version of the album proved to be a cathartic and triumphant journey for both the band and listeners.
With the addition of experimental elements such as samples and guest appearances by prominent musicians, the result is an electrifying and organic record that captures the lived experiences of the authors with unflinching detail. SUNROT emphasizes that despite the struggles depicted in the album, there is a glimmer of joy just below the surface.
Today, we’re giving it a closer look through a special track by track rundown below.
Track by track commentary by vocalist Lex Santiago
1) Descent – the introduction. The intro noise track. The noise is all made or sampled by us and the voice sample is from The Neverending Story. This track is meant to pull you down into hell. The hell that Trepanation’s first line talks about.
2) Trepanation – this is a storytelling song. The story is about a man so desperate to feel better mentally and emotionally, that after trying everything he can think of, finally puts a drill bit to his forehead and drills a hole into his skull in hopes of relief. I don’t know about you, but this is relatable to a bunch of us. That craving for relief that can feel so intense and immediate.
3) Gutter – this is a political song about Land Back. The earth is being killed right before our eyes by corporations. We are in the late stage of a parasitic, capitalistic, hellscape, and the only logical solution is returning stewardship of the land to the people it was taken from, who know more than anyone how to treat it, the indigenous people of all these regions. Not for free either. With stewardship should come total sovereignty, political and economic power that these folks should’ve had a long time ago, and it is only right they should have it now. The reconnection to their ancestral lands is not only just and right, but can help us all.
4) The One You Feed (part 2) – this song is the continuation of a theme I don’t want to give away just yet. This section is about healing trauma. I wrote it after I started EMDR therapy.
5) The Cull – this short noise track is basically just to bring back the original vibe for the second part of the album. It’s a statement about American society as well, and it’s meant to be pretty unsettling.
6) Patricide – this song is about trauma and domestic abuse. The hardest thing for me has been getting that voice out of my head after all these years, so I decided to write a song about it to see if it could help. And it has. If you are experiencing domestic abuse, please, please, find help and support, it’s out there. There are people who care and want to help.
7) Tower Of Silence – this song is basically just an embodiment of grief and loss. The kind that cuts you to the bone. The kind that changes you as a person. The kind you don’t think you’ll ever come back from.
8) Love – this is the outro noise track. Again, all the noise is made or sampled by us. But this is kind of wrapping up the feelings and experience we all just went through together making and listening to this album. If we could leave you with one thing, it would be the excerpt of the amazing speech by James Baldwin we sampled on this track. I’m very tempted to explain it but it’s more profound if you listen to it for yourself.
