Written by Louis Pelingen

From a distance, there is something fascinating about Sunday Stallone. They’re a 5 man band that was formed in 2018, mostly putting out covers from a few years back. Those covers showcase their musical influences, from DIIV and their dreamy brand of indie rock to Yung Lean and his hypnotic brand of cloud rap and hypnagogic pop. Additionally, their Spotify profile mentions their merge of genres such as shoegaze, IDM, and ambient. The influences and genre meshes mentioned prior do knot together with how they put up those covers, hazy textures with washed-out aesthetics to create a vibe that will leave you floating, especially with how the songs are paced to glaze and echo through the mix.

Once you get closer to their debut single, there is a risk that the band pulls through with its wall of sound from the guitars and drums that coast through misty synth patches that elevates even further in the chorus sections. This kind of mixing and maximalist production touches do work well with the intended theme of the song, pushing through times of frustrations and yearning to move forward despite it.

However, once you get the scope of this single, it’s just unfortunate that the rest of the song just ends up being limp. As much as the risk from the band trying to make a stunning debut single is appreciative with its maximalist approach, if maximalism is being pushed here, there needs to be robust melodies and effective performances to carry that maximalism to a potent degree because this just does not have both of these factors. Besides the chorus with its decent maximalist swell, the verse melodies on the instrumental and vocal sides need a bit more crunch and flair to them to act as necessary building blocks to the chorus. Give the drums some engaging rhythms, the guitar and bass some diverse licks, and the keyboard some glistening presence that will make the verse melodies feel rich and buoyant. And when it comes to the performance, even with the backing vocals that show up from time to time do add to the yearning of the song, the vocalists on the first and second verse just lack the tone to sell it. And with the vocal melodies on both verses sounding stiff and bland, their performances just drift further away, feeling one note and numb as a result.

Despite all of those criticisms, there is still work to be done. While this maximalist approach in the genre-fused music landscape has been made before, Sunday Stallone has the texture and spark to fill in the gaps in that maximalist niche. But the lack of fulfilling melodies, transitions, and performances crumble the maximalist mix and textures to the ground. It’s a notable debut single from the band that may be flawed all around, the chorus does save face from this single completely falling apart.

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