At 9 p.m. tonight, downtown Dallas will get a much-needed kick in the ass, as the San Francisco-based drone rockers in Sleepy Sun perform on a bill with True Widow at the City Tavern. In this week's paper, contributor Paige Richmond offered up her take on the headliners:
Everything you want to know about Sleepy Sun is revealed in the band's name. The music is slow and lazy, with a tired--but not bored--quality. It's also bright and buoyant with warm vocals: Singers Bret Constantino and Rachel Williams complement each other on "Sleepy Son," a particularly melodic song that features a harmonica solo. For all the stirring instrumentals--Matt Holliman and Evan Reiss often break from their mellow guitars into heavy riffs--Sleepy Sun is better defined as a jam band than a psych-rock outfit. True, the members sometimes hit a perfect harmony: On songs like "Lord," Constantino drags on the end of his words, slurring his lyrics over hazy music. Other times, it sounds as if every band member is pushing for a solo. Even a beautiful song like "Sleepy Son" attempts to fit together harmonic sounds and over-the-top ones, making it less a singular piece of music than a conceptual musical experiment. This means Sleepy Sun will appeal most to those listeners with plenty of patience: It may take a few spins of the self-released Embrace to really understand that this album is more than just an accidentally recorded band practice.
The likeminded locals in True Widow open.
Beyond that, though? This is probably the biggest test yet on the City Tavern's PA. Should be a loud, loud night.
