Even though Sunrise Hunters, the latest album from Tessa and Friends, runs from the most understated indie to quite anthemic rock, there is always something dreamy about it, music that seems to arrive at the listener having picked up hazy harmony and lush cinematic scope in its travels, sometimes softened around the edges, and always feeling slightly, for want of a better word, other.
“until this summer turns to fall” runs on a pacy beat, yet its lo-fi vibe and production choices that leave the instruments barely separated make for a wonderfully lysergic experience, leaving the song like a dream or the echoes of nostalgia; its sonic hues merged and mingled, a musical watercolor rather than a vivid and well-defined oil painting.
And these things are a deliberate choice because “The Loser Gets Set Free,” a song about the art of sacrifice in the name of personal development, is built of more distinct tracking, the guitar roaring and ripping through more delicate sonics, the vocals punchy, the result a driving slice of indie-rock.
Similarly, “So Long! So Long!” is lush and lovely, a bridge between 80s dream pop and more contemporary indie sounds, and the title track is big, bright, pop-aware and perfectly balanced between infectiousness and originality.
Sunrise Hunters is an album between worlds. It connects the vintage and the vital, the past and the present, the artistic and the energetic, serene soundscapes and foot-on-the-monitor groove, the intimate and the anthemic. And it does all of this while never sounding anything other than Tessa and Friends.
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