Hearing the new Sun Club might get you thinking; it’s not that living in the Northeast makes it hard to be happy, it’s more that living in the Northeast makes being something like chipper exceedingly difficult. No one can really say why. Maybe it’s the weather? Wishing you’d actually freeze to death rather than stand at a bus stop for even one more second, for four months out of the year could legitimately be bringing you down. Regardless,with the release of their new single “Tropicoller Lease”, the Baltimore pop outfit are hyping their first full length The Dongo Durango while having mastered sounding like a pure ray of sunshine.
The song and the video together really create a vibe that’s light hearted and a little deranged; almost like Barney the Dinosaur interviewing Jim Jones for 60 Minutes. The soft reverby guitar picking and the steady stream of synth decorate the scene of the band setting up for a picnic at the mouth of a railroad tunnel while they wear dresses and gingerly feed each other grapes.
A la the title, the song rolls into upbeat dancing guitar lines and a crystalline vocal performance. The video climaxes with a showdown between the band and some animated troll dolls. Looking like something out of a much darker West Side Story, a troll gets gored with a drum stick and another is crushed with a floor tom, all before one has a piece of its side completely ripped out.
The Dongo Durango is out October 30 on ATO Records/PIAS.
