Sun Mahshene make no bones about their influences: here is a band brazenly in thrall to The War on Drugs, Ride and Oasis. The Dublin six-piece, with members from Ireland, Britain and Poland, make a heavy din that will strike a chord with fans of 1990s indie rock. (That it was mastered by Ride’s Mark Gardener will tick another box for fans of that era.) Formed in 2018 and led by Nathan Henderson, they have a “post-shoegaze” sound that moves away from their early incursions into psych-rock, although it wasn’t until 2022 that their eureka moment transpired, while in the studio recording Reverie.
That track, included here on their debut album, is one of the sextet’s more forthright creations, a brisk, multilayered affair that is loaded with the strident chug of heartland rock and a propulsive beat. You could easily imagine Noel Gallagher singing the shimmering Pale Azure, with lyrics such as “I’m looking at the sky, watching the sun go down / Dreaming of a way out of this one-horse town” amid the subtle glimmer of synth, while Rise is one of several songs that folds a current of electronica into its layers.
Their wall of sound is mostly enjoyable, but lyrics prove cumbersome and platitudinous at times, whether it’s Turning Tide’s “My open heart’s on a shelf and my love’s lost itself / Everything has a place, by the universe’s grace” or Henderson’s implorations to “Feed your heart and let it rise / take some time for yourself”. The largely instrumental Fluorescent shows promise with its droney off-kilter approach, but it is overegged and overlong, at more than six minutes. World’s anthemic chorus and enjoyable gurgle of rough-hewn guitars fare much better.
Sun Mahshene’s dedication to a certain sound and era is both their biggest strength and their greatest weakness; there is plenty to admire here, not least some fine musicianship, but also an irrefutable acknowledgment that it has all been done before. With some fine-tuning, a little more risk-taking and a lot less hero-worshipping, their next release could be special. For now, this is a solid, serviceable debut.
