Suuns have hit back with their third effort Hold/Still, another meticulous thrust into the world of the enigmatic, down-tempo isolation that the Canadian quartet can stir up. 2013’s Images du Futur saw a new depth being dug, a venture into another worldly sense of dissonance and psychedelic pulsation. It was a step further into their unique sound from their debut, it saw the band dig deeper into making tension and generating pleasurable senses of claustrophobia and unease. With their music, it’s always exciting to see what else can be found, how can they venture further into their unique sound? Hold/Still is to be the test for that and ultimately, how manic can it make us feel?

See, this band are different from your average psychedelic/experimental group; they really push on a multi-sensual level. How can their music be colder? How can they make it more uncanny, weird and psychotic? How can they drive their sound closer to the world of disorder whilst balancing it delicately upon a tightrope of electronic surges? Drummer, Liam O’Neill suggested; “There's an element of this album that resists you as a listener, and I think that's because of these constantly opposing forces,” there’s nothing quite like a struggling listen then. Hold/Still is the album’s title, it doesn’t roll as a phrase, once again suggesting the resisted premise of the album, the restrained notion you incur from the two words ‘hold’ and ‘still’ – together, you feel paralyzed, just as the first single suggests.

Unnerving sounds eclipse the album from start to finish, such as the monstrous guitar scrawls on the opener, ‘Fall’; a song that undercuts tension with obtuse soundscapes, ravaging thuds contrasted with the haunt of singer, Ben Shemie’s soft vocal textures. This song is relentless in what it’s purpose is, it drums into you the theme of the album and it is of no surprise that it’s picked as the opener. Its purpose is to shatter that fourth wall between the listener and the music, build tension, open the story and put you on the spot. If you were expecting a calm ride, Hold/Still is not necessarily the album for you, but nobody said smooth was always fun, right? This resisted feeling is revisited through the album at various points, marvellously layered to break up any thought of consistency you were building in your mind.

The likes of ‘Resistance’, not so surprisingly personifies the overall resisted theme, a song that opens with stuttered guitar loops whilst having those same soothing vocal textures confronting this disorder at every opportunity. It poises threat as vocals nosedive into seas of delay and distortion, all the while remaining calm and menacing. This is exactly the appeal of Suuns though; they possess the real potential for you to immerse yourself into really falling in tangent with the music. They genuinely generate horror and unease within you; this is largely because of the calm texture versus menacing sparsity battle that reigns throughout. ‘Brainwash’ is another fine example of this jarring war you are consistently stuck between. Cool washing guitar sounds bring about the beginning before being ambushed with cataclysmic sensations of deep, bass-fuelled synth in a similar fashion to Holy Fuck’s material; it throbs, swells and beats you around.

A band such as Suuns who spread a heavy reliance upon both electronic pieces and guitar work, whilst simultaneously generating such a dissonant atmosphere, is bound to have a body of influence that they draw from in different bulks. One of the most prominent for their previous work that springs to mind is Clinic, a band built on the jarring crossover into psychedelia via electronic samplings and guitar work. This can arguably be stretched to the likes of The Horrors and A Place to Bury Strangers, all bands that build unnerving mixes between guitar and electronica. However, with Hold/Still, these influences have spread closer to the realms of electronica, trip-hop and techno, finding closer routes in the likes of Portishead, Beak> and James Holden.

Cutting through the centrefold of the album is the seven minute wonder of ‘Careful’, probably the closest Suuns touch to the complete norm in the album, it’s still riddled with tense and release clauses and perhaps shows the work of the synth obsessive. Max Henry at his finest. Henry cuts through the entirety of the song, showcasing the techno throb of electronica in its finest and most glorious; ethereal swells are undercut with the darkness of light percussion work and arpeggios on guitar. Apparently nothing is Suuns until it’s received the electronic textural treatment and ‘Careful’ acts as testament to this; drums are jilted and jarred due to the nature of using electronic kits. The drunken, woozy poetics of Ben Shemie’s vocals persist throughout, slurring and lamenting in the manner of speak; Suuns haven’t quite let you off the battlefield yet, even as they pull closer to the norm in songwriting.

The dark romance of Hold/Still comes to light in the closing tracks, it grows more exasperated as an album. Listening from start to finish, you can start to piece together the psychologic mania and toxicity that it revels within. It swims within a wash of lunacy and sexual desire, not the act of sex but the search for it, see the lyrics of single, ‘Paralyzer’:

I just wanna touch you
And hold you in my hands

It’s the lust and desperation that acts as the theme of Hold/Still, however this is a general topic for most bands. What really, really makes Suuns stand out is how they personify this theme into a feeling etched into their sound, genuinely something which you can comprehend as a listener.

As the album closes, you grasp the cathartic feeling that the group have now reached. The calming feeling of ‘Nobody Can Save Me Now’ sees Suuns find their warmest sound, their most friendly and reconciling, almost. Shemie’s vocals are at their most audible despite the self-deprecating theme; oddly, the calm has taken to the music too as it brings the album full circle. As we close on the two minute blip of ‘Infinity’, the mood is darkened once more. It almost acts as the end credits to the journey, a sinister glance over the shoulder and point to LP 4 perhaps. What a marvellous return to form though, this album is packed with tension, angst, frustration and desire. It’s an adventure from start to finish, for a band to state a general theme such as sexual desire is one thing but to personify it in this psychotic resistance is a entirely different kettle of fish and proves the point that Suuns are an exceptionally forward thinking group.
Tom Churchill

Website: suuns.net
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