Sunspear // Sunspear
After putting out singles for five years, Sunspear has finally emerged with their debut album. It’s not particularly revolutionary, but it’s polished and will probably grab enough attention to get some traction.
There’s decent variety in the screams, but the choruses were mostly forgettable. The best parts almost always happened when they leaned into the heaviness on songs like “K.C.D.” Other than those moments of heaviness, it was rare to feel a spark of passion.
The album has some cool features, but it’s not a coincidence that those songs are the main ones worth listening to. The features add more to the music than Sunspear can offer themselves.
For the most part, Sunspear unfortunately encapsulates the state of young metalcore bands in 2024. If you came across one of these songs on Spotify, it would blend into every other new band – which is fine, but it would barely register – and you wouldn’t even think to pull out your phone to see who the band is. That’s kind of harsh, but I wouldn’t punch down if I didn’t think they could do better, they just need to differentiate and carve out a space for themselves.
As with a lot of modern metalcore bands, especially those playing this particularly commercial sound, there’s not much identity or individuality to grab onto. I don’t even know what being a serious fan of this band would entail. But if this was like the fourth metalcore band you ever heard, it would do the job.
