US/UK trio Sunday (1994) are as mysterious, and endearing, as their name. Angeleno singer Paige Turner, guitarist Lee Newell (who hails from Slough, setting for the British version of The Office, say no more), and the enigmatic drummer known only as “X” specialize in a dreamy, seamy blend of 1980s British indie jangle, goth-adjacent alternative rock, and 1960s pop. Songwriting duo Turner and Newell, who are also a long-term couple, somehow manage to evoke both Southern Californian sun, sleaze, and gridlock and staring out at a slate gray English winter day from a bedsit covered in Smiths and Cure posters.
Sunday (1994)’s self-titled debut EP is the work of a band who have clearly put in the time and effort of deciding how they wanted to introduce themselves to the world. They nailed their ethos, but they also have the songs to back it up. Here, the original edition’s six core songs are expanded to album length via three additional tunes that feel less like bonus tracks and more like purposefully withheld fragments of a fully formed whole.
Witness “The Loneliness of the Long Flight Home,” which oozes the attachment-based anxiety of new love. Lyrically, it’s a captivating and endearing mix of darkness and sweetness. This amalgam of sincerity and snark is a major selling point, and strength, of Turner and Newell’s songwriting partnership. This containing of multitudes is embodied by “TV Car Chase,” a song that might be about domestic contentment, domestic suffocation, latching on to the one you love while nuclear bombs rain down, the maelstrom of struggling with your mental health—or possibly all of the above.
The Spector-meets-The Sundays sway of “Blonde” glides and claps its way through a tale of doomed romance. It takes a special talent to make woozy heartbreak sound so vulnerable yet so acid-tongued. ”Tired Boy,” the song that kicks off the record, sounds as if it had always existed, and was captured in a net as it floated by in the æther. Turner’s plaintive, beguiling vocals dance around Newell’s chiming, languorous guitar licks and X’s reverb-laden drumming. It’s a song that sounds like the confusing, intoxicating rush of love at first sight, and one that makes it difficult not to fall in love with this band on the spot.
Sunday (1994)’s reliance on mid-tempo arrangements makes for a listen that isn’t as dynamic as it could be. There doesn’t feel like there’s much of an arc to the running order. But that’s only a minor quibble when the material is so strong, and boasts such a cohesive sound and internal worldview. Sunday (1994) is a confident, high-quality debut that hints at even bigger things to come. Sleep on this group at your own peril. | Mike Rengel