Sundrifter - An Earlier Time (2024) Hi-Res

The sound is bigger and broader on Sundrifter's new LP, 'An Earlier Time.' From the appropriate beginning of "Limitless" onward, the Boston-based three-piece answer the potential of their 2019 sophomore album 'Visitations' and their 2016 debut, 'Not Coming Back,' with a collection that is likewise huge and intimate, bringing together expansive atmospheres a la Hum's heavy post-rock vision with Soundgarden's unmitigated heavy revelry and melodic command and the contemplative expressivism of Radiohead. Eight songs, each one of them a world to get lost in. They just seem to spread out, and out, and out.

With the returning trio of guitarist/vocalist Craig Peura bassist Paul Gaughran and drummer Patrick Queenan, Sundrifter call to mind the expansive atmospheric heavy rock of outfits like Forming the Void or Small Stone veterans Abrahma, but Peura's vocals cull influence from '90s alt rock in a way that emphasizes the individual now more than ever, and the band's third-album realizations come complemented by the return of producer/mixer Dan Schwartz (Chris Goosman mastered) and cover art by Branca Studio, furthering the 'complete package' sensibility fostered in no small part by the weighted complexity and breadth of the tracks themselves. It's not so much heavy rock as is, but as it could be.