REVIEW: Sunwatchers, Oh Yeah?

Sunwatchers, Oh Yeah? (Trouble in Mind)

Jazz has always been one of the stones on which NYC-based skronk-rock outfit Sunwatchers based their sound, but each subsequent release has moved slightly away from off-kilter Sun City Girls-adjacent freak jams and into more spiritual (though still plenty freaky) realms. Oh Yeah? still features enough lysergic guitar work and dissonant saxophone to keep the much-reviled concept of jazz-fusion at bay, but it also features wider arrangements and more overt nods to the ecstatic spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane. Don’t let that scare you off, however. For all of their heady influences, Sunwatchers deliver an album that’s almost entirely free of pomp — and can even make the space for a quasi-industrial shred session (“The Worm Store”) and a nearly 20-minute jam. 8/10 Trial Track: “Love Paste”

Sunwatchers website

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