SunStare is back to announce its new album.
Created in 2013 in France, the band composed of Peb (vocals, Edremerion), Vince (guitar), Tom (bass) and Antoine (drums) already released two albums of their Sludge dyed with sumerian myths and legends. In 2022, Ziusudra comes out at Source Atone Records.
The album begins with the worrying Ziusdra and its appeasing but mysterious tones, which set the basis of a weighing saturation accompanied by ritualistic percussions which drive us to Namlulu Di-Kud (The Sentence), an as heavy but a bit more martial song. Visceral howlings clash with this abrasive and greasy rhythmic, then a strange voice comes next to animate the clean-sounding break before heady riffs surface again. The song ends with ice-cold notes, which finally let place to Abgal (The Very Wise) and its weighing sonorities, which turn into some airy notes. Slow tiffs quickly come back to offer a haunting, highly saturated and above all worrying sound, which leads us to Zi-Sag-Gal (Sauve-Vie), a new composition with raw groove which welcomes quite complementary vocal parts. The stunning rage sometimes lets place to a stifled melody, then Uru (Wrath, Flood) offers us a soft introduction. The sound moves forward to a massive saturation, but the mystical elements live on, creating this contrasted atmosphere which quickly leaves for Ganzer (The Abyss) and its heady heaviness. Whether the first voice turns out to be harrowing, the whole song unveils hooking Prog elements, then devastating vocals and cryptic lyrics, then the suffocating rhythmic drive us to a white noise before Awîlum (L’Homme Libre), the last composition, offer us its melancholic slowness. Even if this last feeling predominates, the band still places aggressive and massive elements into its rhythmic, as well as a dissonance on more energetic parts before leaving us with a larsen.
The atmosphere created by SunStare is still very contrasted. Whether the weighing Sludge basis is prevailing in Ziusudra, we also have different voices, melancholic melodies and dissonant harmonics, creating an abrasive and dark melting.
80/100