Sunflower Bean - Twentytwo In Blue (2018)

The Brooklyn band’s second album offers a reverent spin on the alt and indie-rock canon. Their songwriting has grown tighter since their debut, but their music is unlikely to inspire strong emotions.

hen I think of Sunflower Bean’s Twentytwo in Blue, the first thing that comes to mind is “lovable.” And I swear to you that was before I read frontwoman Julia Cumming making the following statement in a press release for her band’s sophomore album: “I think one word that always comes to mind when I think about this record is lovable.” True, organic endearment could be just as important for an aspiring rock band in 2018 as a crossover hit or a crucial sync placement. Probably more realistic too, and Sunflower Bean are a proper charm offensive: They’re young, but come off as experienced beyond their years. They’re stylish, but not styled. They’re clearly a rock band, but they’re also kinda chill and never sound like they’re here to do either to an extreme. They’re a coed trio outraged in the “Can you believe this shit?” default of the current moment; in a recent Billboard interview, Twentytwo in Blue was credited with the foresight to anticipate #MeToo, the Stoneman Douglas High School protests, and Black Lives Matter. If you could focus-group the platonic ideal for "lovable rock music for 2018" into existence, it would sound and look a lot like Twentytwo in Blue.

This is about the same place they ended up on their delightfully ragged debut, Human Ceremony; sure, it was a low-stakes rummaging through the alt and indie-rock canon, but its appeal rested in watching it performed with such reckless glee. Twentytwo in Blue is no less reverent; smartly compartmentalized into upbeat pop-rock shuffles, silvery ballads, a waltz-time showstopper, and the late-album filler with Nick Kivlen on lead vocals, they’re never more than two degrees removed from Fleetwood Mac, our generation’s classic-rock common denominator. Sunflower Bean are just much more efficient these days, like they’ve spent the past two years studying underlying song structure rather than pure sound. All 11 tracks are streamlined, sleek, and ensure the chorus hits when expected, as expected. There’s no filler, just songs that at least leave a strong first impression, even if they end up being the only one it leaves.

It all bodes well for Sunflower Bean’s prospects. They’ve carefully honed a resume for festivals that prefer to book rock bands that don’t actually rawk, which are really most of them. This professionalism doesn’t cut against Sunflower Bean’s aims to create a lovable album, but it definitely undermines making one specifically about the experience of being 22—“independent,” but also “busted and used” as the quasi-title track puts it, a variant of Taylor Swift describing the same age as “miserable and magical.” All members of Sunflower Bean are actually 22 and rather than exploring those extremes, Cumming and Kivlen play the most lovable role of all: the level-headed friend who’ll hear you out with no judgment.

On “Twentytwo,” Cumming exhibits superhuman empathy, a voice of feminist allegiance who understands the draw of toxic masculinity even while condemning it. Meanwhile, “I Was a Fool” and “Puppet Strings” are breakup songs with enough distance from their blast radius not to be poisoned anymore. But when “Burn It,” “Crisis Fest,” and “Human For” vow to burn your hometown to cinders, take the patriarchy with it, and establish “the drum” as the universal religion, they just sound like 7 p.m. at Coachella instead. It’s the result of what someone might hear if they were equidistant from concurrent Haim and White Reaper sets. It’s a perfect union if anyone finds the former too glossy and the other too gritty, but in occupying this middle ground, nothing here would qualify as potentially divisive protest music. In fact, there’s nothing divisive about Twentytwo in Blue at all, which means Cumming and I were just slightly off the mark—without the ability to inspire any strong emotion one way or the other, it has to settle for “likable.”