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Photo: Em Medland-Marchen
Photo: Em Medland-Marchen

Sunglaciers Dream Big on Regular Nature

The Calgary psych-punk darlings continue pushing the boundaries of a constantly evolving genre.

by Sebastian Buzzalino

Calgary’s psych-leaning post-punk darlings, Sunglaciers, continue to push themselves further into the abyss with Regular Nature, a swelling, 15-track album that revels and dances in the lengthening shadows of a sundown seance. Anchored by Mathieu Blanchard’s steady motorik-cum-disco drumming, Sunglaciers are free to be as expansive as they can dream, with seemingly no idea or instrument off limits in the brainstorming phase. Moving the well-worn boundaries of post-punk into new territory, bongos bring a quasi-cumbia rhythm to album opener, “Fakes,” while jazzy sax skronks skitter all over the dark and brooding “A.I.,” elevating the band’s output above the traditional angular rhythms and jagged guitars that characterize the genre.

Regular Nature emerges as a tight, cohesive body of work that belies the album’s otherwise sprawling length and ambition. It would have been easy for each track to shoot off into disparate directions, truly throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, but co-songwriter (alongside Blanchard) and frontman Evan Resnik keeps everything under his steely gaze, tugging at the edges before they’re able to unfurl and become unruly. Threads of ennui and missed connections tie it all together and, as the album fades into the dark of another encroaching dusk, Sunglaciers promise to keep the dance party going well into the night.