Heavy and doom-ladden, The Proselyte's Sunshine is a solid slab of sludge metal with lots of melody and groove as well as plenty of references to the heavy southern rock of the 90s.
While the first track, 'Suckers Have Teeth', is an uptempo and fairly aggressive tune and uptempo passages do occur on the album, Sunshine is mostly a quite heavy album which draws on a dark and oppressive psychedelia which, as if to spare the listener from total depression, is punctuated by more uplifting intermezzos (such as certain choral harmonies and melodies every now and then). Fans of slow and sludgy music will definitely find the many heavy southern rock-derived passages appealing, and there are also plenty of quite doom-ladden riffs to make fans of doom metal happy. There are two dominant types of singing on the album: a clean grungy Alice in Chains-like style, which suits the heavy rock aspects of this release quite well, and an aggressive hardcore punk yelling, which generates an interesting sense of tension.
So, this is obviously a quite expressive album, which draws on sludge metal, doom metal, 70s heavy rock and, to some extent, also 90s grungy alternative/rock metal. In addition, the tunes on Sunshine are also progressively oriented, and The Proselyte make frequent use of odd time signatures and dynamic changes from heavy metallic passages to more mellow and melodic ones.
Fans of progressive sludge metal along the lines of Mastodon will probably find The Proselyte's progressively tinged Sunshine an enjoyable listen. Its texture is perhaps less multifaceted than Mastodon's sound, but The Proselyte's sound is much more focused, and there is, of course, enough variation to prevent one's attention from wandering. In Sunshine, we are definitely dealing with a strong and well-put together sludge metal release, which is both interesting and enjoyable.
Track list:
1. Suckers Have Teeth
2. Four Fathers
3. Grey Lady
4. White Mud
5. Legion in Vine
6. Slaw
7. Sulfur Queen
8. Thirty Thousand Feet of Shark
9. Freedom Trail
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