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Sunshine Ward is Boston Hardcore by way of Totalitar and Chaos UK. Follow up to their noisy as fuck demo EP, this 10 song LP is straight forward hardcore punk. Less pedals, more hardcore. Pogo and mosh. Hard as piss. Flip a cop car. Members of Brain Killer and Exit Order.
Our take: If you've spent any amount of time with Feral Ward's catalog, you know that even though this is a record with a blown-out black and white pic of a punk dude on the cover and the band's logo in ransom letters, this isn't going to be your run of the mill punk. And indeed that's the case here. On the surface Sunshine Ward seem kind of like your standard Totalitär-inspired punk/crust band, but the more I listen to Order the more I come to appreciate what's so unique about it. In short, there's a real catchy punk sensibility at work here. I mean, the closest sonic reference point, Totalitär, is certainly catchy, but there are moments on Order that draw from a more traditional, upbeat, punk sound that I associate with Finnish bands like Appendix and Lama. It's very subtle, and honestly the first few times I listened to this record as background music while I was doing other things I didn't really appreciate it at all, but as soon as I gave it an attentive listen I was pretty much blown away. Perfect production, and just enough uniqueness in the songwriting to make them sound fresh without making them anything other than a killer hardcore punk band. Definitely one of the highlights of the hardcore crust scene's 2016 output so far.
Our take: If you've spent any amount of time with Feral Ward's catalog, you know that even though this is a record with a blown-out black and white pic of a punk dude on the cover and the band's logo in ransom letters, this isn't going to be your run of the mill punk. And indeed that's the case here. On the surface Sunshine Ward seem kind of like your standard Totalitär-inspired punk/crust band, but the more I listen to Order the more I come to appreciate what's so unique about it. In short, there's a real catchy punk sensibility at work here. I mean, the closest sonic reference point, Totalitär, is certainly catchy, but there are moments on Order that draw from a more traditional, upbeat, punk sound that I associate with Finnish bands like Appendix and Lama. It's very subtle, and honestly the first few times I listened to this record as background music while I was doing other things I didn't really appreciate it at all, but as soon as I gave it an attentive listen I was pretty much blown away. Perfect production, and just enough uniqueness in the songwriting to make them sound fresh without making them anything other than a killer hardcore punk band. Definitely one of the highlights of the hardcore crust scene's 2016 output so far.