These recent releases from Sunshine Blind make for an excellent then-and-now exercise, a before-and-after of a band’s sonic development. Both take the form of double-A side singles, which, for the younger reader, was a 7’ single where the songs found on both sides are considered to be equally important, and both are important sonic documents on the band’s timeline.
Starting in the here and now, “Ghost of You” is an intense and roaring blend of gothic moves and hard rock grooves, a motorik urge expressed through shamanic beats and relentless, rumbling bass as the razor-wire guitar cuts its way through the sound with coiled and creative riffs. But where “Ghost of You” feels solid and driving, “Unsinkable,” by contrast, is fractured and jagged, built of musical spikes and broken glass sonics —a sonic slash to the former’s power punch.
Unreleased Vol. 1 is where things get really interesting for the musicologist, a snapshot of the band in their formative 90s heyday. Of course, taking snapshot songs to discuss whole eras and sounds doesn’t carry much weight, but as a reviewer, it is fun to do.
“Tomorrow” is a song that sounds of its time, and I mean that as no disrespect, a spacious slice of ethereal 90’s darkwave driven by the more solid form of chiming guitars and resonant bass pulses. “Hanging Lake,” here in demo form, blends the groovesome and the mystical, a reminder that the early gothic scene, to which the dark dancefloor denizens and creatures of the night belonged, was not that far removed musically from the alternative nightclub of the times.
It is all an interesting exercise in the evolution of a band, but it says as much about the changing winds of sonic fashion as it does about the band itself. Most interesting for me is the fact that this is also a band who were thrown off an early Sisters of Mercy tour for being “too goth,” odd because these two snapshots of the band’s sound seem to parallel Eldritch’s own move from cooler, dark post-punk to a bigger, rock-infused guitar sound. I’m just saying…
