Hi, everyone. General Strike here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new album from Sunday Mourners, A Rhythm Absolute.

This is the debut full-length album of Sunday Mourners, a California four-piece that are said to be childhood and college friends, started this band not too long ago, have been dropping singles and smaller releases here and there, eventually leading up to this album on Curation Records, and just randomly happening upon it on the internet, I will say my first impression was pretty good. This album is a very trim and quality 10-track, 41-minute introduction with a mix of proto-punk, punk, and post-punk influences laced throughout all the cuts.

And starting with a very smart opening track titled "Careers In Acting", featuring a lot of dry, eccentric, angular rock grooves. The band is tight, and even though is a new record, it comes across like an underground recording from the '80s. However, the lyrics read like an acknowledgement of the very dystopian economic times that we're living in, with the many rungs in the ladder of upward mobility being pulled out one by one, leaving many to aspire to careers in acting or social media influencing or attention seeking as a means of making it.

However, as it is stated in the lyrics of this track, it won't help you. It's either fruitless or futile or the answers and fulfilling vibes you seek in these pathways will not be found there. And singer Quinn A. Robinson, really makes sure you're feeling the impact of every word with this weird ferocity that at times reminds me of vocalists like Richard Hell.

The momentum and intensity picks up on the following "Biograph". Here, the band is really rocking, pulling out the shakers to add some extra spice to that percussion, and delivering a lot of wiry guitar work and boxy bass notes. It's a great in the moment recording and performance of the band just like feeding into one another's chaos a bit.

And then, like, three tracks in, just when you thought Sunday Mourners might pretty much only be mapping out and planning to drop this very cut and dry, very bare bones, very basic post-punk experience, we get the 12 minute song, "Darling", which is this wild cut with a very soft and subtle intro with a lot of low-key charisma to it, a la Lou Reed or Jonathan Richmond. The lyrics read very much like a "better to have loved and lost" type beat. Then suddenly, the band launches into this linear krautrock style and take the whole track on this winding jam that's edge of your seat from start to finish.

We then pare things down on "11,000 Bolts" where the group manages to pull together some pretty sticky refrains on the hook. Meanwhile, the following "There's A Garden In You", which was another single from the band a while ago, features super endearing and encouraging lyrics, and in a way feels like them building on the recent efforts of other punk and post-punk revivalists such as Parquet Courts, which is good source of inspiration as any. Except this time around, we're hearing some weird psychedelic undertones from the guitars and what also sounds like some freaky viola or cello embellishments. Not entirely sure, but that was most definitely coming out of left field and added a lot to the track.

Now, I will say overall, the second half of the record is not quite as strong as the first. The song structures of "Phantom Affair" and "He Cried" weren't quite as gripping, even if the band's performances here do lend a lot of attention to these tracks. And then the song "Unwitting Boy", which is maybe the least necessary song on the record, just fizzles out out of nowhere.

However, "Love Observations" does actually show maybe the most pop sensibilities of any song in the tracklist here, and is certainly sweeter on the ears than what it stands shoulder to shoulder to with its piano passages and bop bop vocals. Definitely a vibe I would enjoy hearing the band dive into further as they work out more ways to increase the variety of their track lists.

Then we have a pretty solid closing track on the record as well, which I think, ties up a lot of core themes of the album, given there is so much time on this record spent focusing on dissatisfaction and restlessness and longing. And because of that, the band leaves us with this question of what exactly happens when your dreams do come true, the things that you've wanted all along happen, you get what you've been vying for.

I know what I'm vying for, for you guys to listen to this album because it's a pretty damn good one for an up and coming band that's showing a lot of promise. Again, if you're into proto-punk, straightforward punk rock, some groovy, dancey, awkward, talk-sung post-punk music, too, the band has a lot to offer. A very upfront vocalist with something to say who leaves a strong first impression. Solid instrumental chemistry from the whole band throughout. Some songs do pale in comparison to others, and occasionally I do get the sense that the group is still finding their sound and working out more ways to make their influences reflect in their music in a way that's distinct.

But such is the case for a lot of artists at the beginning stages of their career, which is why I'm feeling a decent to strong seven on this album.

Anthony Fantano, Sunday Mourners, forever.