Sleepy Sun (San Fran) w/ White Hills (NYC)
Sleepy Sun
Their long hair, nature-kid press photos and onstage face paint seemingly align Sleepy Sun with San Fran's tie-dyed tradition, but the band's palette is actually smeared with a whole lotta Blacks: Sabbath, Mountain (whose producer, Colin Stewart, works the boards here), Angels and-- when singer Bret Constantino busts out a boogie-summoning wail on "Snow Goddess"-- even the Crowes. But if the opening "New Age" establishes Sleepy Sun as archetypal stoner-rockers-- with Constantino's vaporous vocals floating atop a subterranean fuzz bassline, molten guitar leads, and drum fills that roll right off of Bill Ward's tom-tom rack-- the song's follow-up, the surprisingly affecting piano-based spiritual "Lord", shows the group has designs on writing songs that still move you after the drugs wear off, and that Constantino can be the sort of emotionally assertive vocalist who doesn't always have to hide behind the haze ... more at Pitchfork
"Earth-quaking riffage in such carefully measured, perfectly spaced-out rations, it tricks you into thinking the band is much heavier than it actually is." - Pitchfork
"Sleepy Sun are at their best when they revel in both light and dark, unleashing throatily riffing guitars to disrupt pastoral interludes." - NME
"brings LSD's dark side to the hippies, layering head-pummeling Black Sabbath metal and head-tripping Flaming Lips psychedelia on top of Fleet Foxes folk" - Spin
"while their sound evokes another time (and intensely altered states of being), it's their flair for strangeness (in the form of massive basslines, syncopated percussion, and enormous beards) that has their rabid fan base screaming" - Esquire
"Sleepy Sun can create a sort of time capsule within which the listener can be transported along with the band to a better time for rock music, as the band does effectively on its sophomore album, Fever." -SF Weekly