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Ambient performances at UK Latitude Festival 17-20 July |
Album review |
A band so cool that Tool nicked their bass player and covered their songs, SOTT share their musical soulmates’ exploratory zeal, if not their mischievous haughtiness. Am 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)
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Album Review |
Tool fans will be familiar with Brit rockers Suns of the Tundra because back when they were called Peach, bassist Justin Chancellor was a member. A well-received opening set at Download in June (performing on the same day as their former bandmate) 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…
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Album Review |
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/
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Album review |
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... Why can’t you buy this in the shops? It would seem that right now, the Suns of the tundra website is the only place. The album ended leaving me in a reflective mood, the sort of mood that makes you say to yourself ‘there must be more to life than…’, and that’s when I realised that Suns of the tundra must not go undiscovered, leaving only die hard Peach/Tool fans like myself enjoying their work.... Suns of the Tundra's music isn't just rock, prog, stoner, metal, it's all that and so much more, they could be defining a new genre here and who knows what they’ll come up with next. I'm sure that not being a major label band, ‘Tunguska’ and future albums from Suns of the tundra will be largely unheard, criminal but probably true. However, I get the sense that this might be how they like it, doing it their way until people find them, the word of mouth concept, and that as we all know is the way it is for music a few of us love. So actually, lets keep Suns of the tundra our secret, and only share it with friends you think deserve to hear it. Read this review in full at: http://www.drownedinsound.com/release/view/7674?type=user
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Album review |
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.
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Album review |
...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. Read in full at: http://www.roomthirteen.com/cgi-bin/cd_view.cgi?CDID=4083
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Album review |
...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. Tool have of course been exploring this territory for some time, and many more bands have followed their example with differing margins of success. 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
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| Live review
Kerrang! Catherine Yates
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Download Festival, 9 June 2006
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. Not surprising for the band that donated Justin Chancellor to Tool, they wear their progressive wanderlust as a badge of honour, ushering in the day with style and grace. Magic. |
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| Live review |
Download Festival, 9 June 2006
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.
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Live review
Melody Maker |
London Astoria, November 1993 PEACH should play more gigs like this. The indie audiences (and occasional MM journalists) they've found themselves playing to lately just don't seem to understand. But, as metal's church grows ever broader and the term becomes less definitive, they've finally found an audience who can accommodate their breadth of vision. All the best bands experimenting with metal are learning to spread their power over a wider area, and Peach are exemplary - no longer an anal retentive, single-cell drill but something that evolves as it plays, expanding to draw in a variety of textures and then closing down, the pressure forcing it into a driven, pregnant tide. The final "You Lied" is a visceral odyssey, coursing ever onwards and briefly dropping away,as it breaks out into a jewel-studded expanse. They go down a storm. Get wise.
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Album review |
Suns of the Tundra (2004)
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."
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Album review Fishcom-collectiveUPCHUCK UNDERGRIND |
Suns of the Tundra (2004)
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.
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Album review |
Suns of the Tundra (2004)
Although they received international recognition almost entirely as a consequence of the one-time involvement of Tool bassist Justin Chancellor, there will nonetheless be more than a few who held the music of Peach in high regard. Since the re-release of their "Giving Birth To A Stone" effort at the dawn of the new millennium however, there has been little activity from the band that has made the musical press, and as such it is not surprising that the release of a new album under the moniker Suns Of The Tundra has gone largely unnoticed thus far. While Chancellor and original Peach guitarist Ben Durling are no longer involved, Laszlo Pallagi (Obiat vocalist), drummer Andy Prestige of Cortizone/When Gravity Fails fame and Andy Marlowe (Sterling) have filled the void, seamlessly birthing the new project from the core which was once Peach. Both self-funded and released through the band's own Shiny Mack label in a limited run of 1,000 copies, Suns Of The Tundra's debut album is currently available from their official website, where nine tracks from the effort can also be sampled in mp3 format. |
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all materials (c) 2004-2006 suns of
the tundra and shiny mack records |
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