Album review

Kerrang!
12 August

Dom Lawson

An exercise in sprawling space rock with a tough, rhythmic core, ‘Tunguska’ takes the listener on a rollercoaster ride of jarring twists, elegant turns and unexpected detours. It’s a demanding album, but an inclusive and accessible one too. From urgent opener ‘Caught telling the truth’ through the nine-part 30-minute ‘Insignificance’ and beyond, this is one to enjoy without distraction.  KKKK (4/5)

Album Review

Guitar
August

Brett Callwood

A well-received opening set at Download in June did their reputation no harm, and their second album should let them capitalise on the current flurry of media attention. Much of the record is a success too... the guitar work between Oakes and Mark Moloney is often brilliant. It’s also often, dare we say, Tool-like, particularly on the ethereal title track and the excellent ‘Caught Telling the Truth’. Chancellor evidently received a good schooling…

Album Review

NightcapSyndication.com
July

Marty Dodge

There is a growing subset of prog called stoner prog. It takes in the late 60s psychedelia and layers it in with the uber-musicianship of progressive music. The band hails from the tundra known as Camden, London. There elements of Tool in there as well as Kings X with a taste of old Pink Floyd (RIP Syd). Heavy bass with loads of swirly guitar is the order of the day today... At times the band sounds a bit like Oasis if they had gone all prog. I am sure Homer would love the tune "Monkey Dance." I really rather like "Now the Flood has Come" with its catchy as hell guitar line. This is great stuff on all levels and you know damn well it will be cracking live.

http://www.nightcapsyndication.com/content/view/254/59/

Album review

Drownedinsound.com
July

Rock Monkey

I received the new album 'Tunguska', about two months ago. All I can say is go get it, now! I've had not much else on my player for that time, even though Tool’s awesome 10,000 Days came out around the same time, their English cousins show that they can still step up to the plate. The album itself is a wonderful journey, the sort of record you put your biggest, stupidest headphones on for and listen to with the lights off, absorbing every rich note, until you think it was written and recorded just for you, and no one else really knows the record like you do... 

Read this review in full at: http://www.drownedinsound.com/release/view/7674?type=user

Album review

Caughtinthecrossfire.com
July

James Sherry

Suns Of The Tundra evolved from the early-90s cult UK rock band Peach, famous for featuring Tool bassist Justin Chancellor. Combined with members of Mint 400 and Cortizone, Suns Of The Tundra enter a new era of progressive rock with their second full length album ‘Tunguska’ and it’s huge! A sprawling mass of sonic noise and grooves, these guys successfully take rock to the next level and every second of this CD is epic in it’s scope and sound. If you were lazy you could call them the UK equivalent of Tool, but we’re not and we won’t. Just be safe in the knowledge that Suns Of The Tundra will grow to Radiohead proportions or sink into obscurity because they’re just too damn clever for the lowest common denominator that you need to appeal too for success in the mainstream. Either way, this is a fucking great record.

http://www.caughtinthecrossfire.com/music/thepit/1498

Album review

Roomthirteen.com
July

Jo Vallance

...There's shimmering, uncomfortable beauty in 'Sandiette Light Automatic's nursery rhyme words combined with a discordant tune, while 'Monkey Dance' has those brash riffs that must have got Tool going. 'Lucky Dazed' is laden with epic emotion and more spoken word than music, provides an interlude that gets your attention before the stunning, 'Now The Flood Has Come', which harnesses the theatricality of Iron Maiden at their finest in its unrelenting riffs and haunting guitars echoing the vocals' sentiments.

...'Coelacanth Heart', plays us out with four minutes of ringing phones, vocal samples and random sound blended in with tender guitar notes. It's a fitting end to a fantastically interesting album. Fans of pure rock will love some of the earlier songs under the 'Insignificance' banner, while the psychedelic edge makes this a great listen for any music fan and there are some superb moments of exploration into softer territories.

Read in full at: http://www.roomthirteen.com/cgi-bin/cd_view.cgi?CDID=4083

Album review

MusicOMH.com
August

Sam Shepherd

...The band formerly known as Peach has regrouped, added a few new members, and continued their journey into the tripped out world of wacked out prog metal. Suns of The Tundra happen to have made an album that is an unmitigated triumph. The album itself is divided into four sections, so pretension is certainly a factor. The band has also listed every piece of equipment they use on the album cover. Nothing screams 'nerdy muso alert' more, but then that kind of behaviour is openly encouraged in Prog circles. Still, we can forgive them this simply because every song here is packed with big ideas and huge riffs.

...The trouble with this kind of thing is that just occasionally that ideas run short and songs conversely turn into long drawn out affairs. This simply isn't the case with Suns of The Tundra, even the densest of the tunes on offer here somehow manage to appear lean, with no superfluous flab hanging off their middle eights... Perhaps the most impressive thing about Tunguska is the sheer size of the sound. The drums rumble like tracks of an approaching Panzer division whilst the guitars chime and grind often at the same time. They occupy several different musical ranges at once, which has the effect of stroking the pleasure centre of your brain whilst simultaneously carrying out a lobotomy with a steel toed army boot. (4/5)

Read in full at http://www.musicomh.com/albums5/suns-of-the-tundra_0806.htm

Kerrang!
13 June 2006

Catherine Yates

Clever Bastards, these suns of the tundra (KKKK). Beaming their expansive, epic songs in from rock's outer limits, they provide a hypnotic rejuvenating cure. They wear their progressive wanderlust as a badge of honour, ushering in the day with style and grace. Magic.

Room Thirteen

Only twenty minutes after the gates to Download 2006 have opened, Suns of the Tundra take to the Snickers Stage for an eclectic opening set. With a saxophone, a megaphone, a sombrero and a selection of the usual rock instruments, Suns of the Tundra kick off with a heavy, rich, layered that reflects their years of practice.

With vocal duties shared, the band immediately produces a sound that you wouldn't expect from the first band of the festival. With an eclectic sound that can be part likened to fellow stage-mates Clutch and ex-touring buddies Tool, Suns of the Tundra are a band that you need to check out if you like your rock slightly experimental, partly-prog and laden with effects.

With a thirty second "Come on Donington!" scream the Snickers stage gradually fills up throughout the set culminating in a Peach's song often covered by Tool themselves. A great way to start any festival, but the perfect way to start a day ending in Tool headlining.

Album review

The Organ

There’s a bit about five minutes in to the wonderfully titled tenth track - Syzygy (part iii) - where it just builds up in such a so heartwarmingly good and soaringly triumphant way and oh yes……..  Suns Of The Tundra have us hooked well before the last of the ten very big tracks though – life is indeed peachy. Shall we kick in with a mad minute of history here and go back to the start of the 90’s when for a fleetingly glorious time you just had to be at every Mint 400/Peach gig at places like The Falcon and the West Hampstead Moonlight Club and the Sausage Machine and how the two closely related bands were to have such a big influence on Tool and indeed supply them with a bass player and how for a time it was like this knowing sister/brotherhood of camp followers and how sometimes the magic is just there – nah, we’re not here for history lessons – next you’ll have me stalking the streets of Hammersmith is search of the unreasonably impossible and long lost whitesnakes (and trying to rebuild the Clarendon just to see Bolt Thrower and The Stupids play together again) – all that is like giving birth to a stone. 

So Peach became Suns Of The Tundra and here’s the new Peach album or the new Suns album (whichever way you want it) and yes – hang on, just got to tell you about this bit half way through “Bottlenecked” that’s totally utter classic Van Der Graaf – the Suns know this, they know Van Der Graaf are the greatest band of all time – Suns Of The Tundra understand these things, their sound comes from the dark tower beyond the blasted oak. The Suns sound is a sound all of its own though, its got fishes that can’t fly and neither can I, it tastes of the great god Hammill and Tool and the glorious dynamics of Mint 400 and early IQ - the Suns Of The Tundra sound is something altogether different and equally as powerful (and totally compelling). Gloriously English - dramatic, dynamic, spiritual in an almost pagan/medieval sense – nothing you can pin down, it’s just there in the wood of it all. 

It’s the nearest thing you can get to English desert music, it’s standing on its own, ah, I wish I could explain it – like a new bird unfolding. Some of it feels like the best bits of Monster Magnet or God Machine or an even more dynamic Mogwai - ultimately it’s Peach taken another step forward and soaring higher than ever - and without Peach you might not have had Tool and without Tool the musical landscape might not be quite what it is today and…… OK, enough said, look, you need this album – its nothing like anything I just told you, its far better than that, I was just fishing around for the words and failing again."    

Album review

UPCHUCK UNDERGRIND

Distorted guitar can be either an impenetrable wall or an encompassing wormhole into space. Suns of the Tundra's thick doom guitars are of the latter aspect, presenting an expansive sound-scape into which the listener can escape while the strong but melodic vocal approach brings the band's lyricism to the listeners' ears.  

There's a hint of Yob's brand of guitar work to Tundra's sound except that Tundra is far more compact and to the point than the extremely prog-rooted doom metal of Yob. Certainly, in a genre where it's easy to basically fit in if you have heady, thick guitars, Suns of the Tundra have crafted a sound that's distinctive and original, hard rocking but not forgetful of artistry.