Exclusive Premiere: Sundowner Seethe with Caustic Fury in “Substance Abuse”
Three years after the release of their debut album Guns, Knives and Tyre Irons, Australian sludge/stoner metal outfit Sundowner’s back with another batch of corrosive, downtrodden tunes with the impending release of Lysergic Ritual later this month. To mark the occasion, they’ve teamed up with us to unleash their latest single, “Substance Abuse” and damn it, if this isn’t a heavy one.
Featuring a simmering fury that just bubbles under the surface of crushingly heavy guitars and pounding rhythms, the track’s got an easily identifiable through line to genre masters like Eyehategod and Weedeater, with a little bit of Black Sabbath in their tone at times.
According to the band, their new album is “the best representation we’ve put together of what Sundowner is; just dirty, noisy, heavy sludge.” For Lysergic Ritual, the band said they opted to get some professionals in to make the release the best it could be, rather than adopt the DIY style they did for the debut.
“Having previously done everything on our own: recording/mixing/mastering etc, this time we decided to bring in Jason Fuller from Goatsound Studios to mix the album and Dav Byrne from Iridium Audio to master it, both based in Melbourne, Australia.
“We feel these are better songs and it’s the big step up we wanted to take with this album.” Adds the band. Overall, a darker vibe with this one and it’s still straight down the line sludge, which is exactly where we want to be.”
As for the video below, that was directed by Scott Heywood-Smith of Juicy View Productions, though much like a lot of the band’s ethos, it took on a very do-it-yourself feel.
“[The video] was shot in our practice room. We brought in a heap of red lights and a smoke machine and lit them up, so we were playing the song in a solid red haze — simple but effective. The guys did a great job filming and editing all the takes, brings the song to life in a visual format, which we’d not done before.”
Seriously. Watch that video, listen to the track, and tell me you didn’t start nodding your head without even thinking about it. It’s impossible.
Lysergic Ritual will be released on April 20 (nice), but you can preorder your copy today.
