On ‘Singularity’, Brooklyn based post rock enthusiast Ed Parada takes you into an almost surrealist fantasy of futuristic off the wall sounds. Parada’s direction across this record makes for an album that sounds like a score for something cinematic, something fantastical and fictitious. Sunset Afire is incredibly ambitious in scale and substance, delivering a record that sounds so far removed from anything you could conceive. It feels like you’re on a spaceship with a course set further and further away from what you already know. Due in large part to the record’s opening piece, with a slew of Davie Bowie and 2001: A Space Odyssey scattered across it, Singularity immediately hooks you in to an almost sci-fi score of majestic cinematics.
But the sonic elements and style are rarely if ever constant. Despite the name, Singularity is far from a monolithic record. On ‘Savior Complex’, Sunset Afire take a far more aggressive and abrasive approach with a pulsating hard rock anthem that’s loaded with growls, heavy guitar and bass, and crashing drum work that builds tension with each passing beat. The constant interpolation of vocalists also adds to the experience, building a record that sounds delectably collaborative and imaginative from back to font. It’s perhaps at the end where the album hits its own zenith however. The more grunge influenced rock piece, ‘Red Sails’, is an atmospheric introduction to the nihilistically fuelled minds behind the vicious yet sublimely composed furore in the seminal album.
Recorded and produced during the pandemic with an assortment of musicians featured through the project, ‘Singularity’ is as ambitious in scale as it is in execution. A cinematic space rock record that doesn’t hold back one bit.