Sunnsetter – Surely Everything’s Alright
Genre: Shoegaze, Post Rock
What drugs did the hippies end up doing? I mean, of course, after they finished with the drugs that they’re most famous for taking. The truth is that few revolutionary hippies demanded peace and social change going on with the same behavior throughout their lives.
The majority of them, the ones that were still around, ended up taking up meditation. There were, also, other forms of spiritual practice that involved channeling some kind of “positive vibes.”
This is nothing to sneeze at, surely. These things did help make these people happier, healthier, and more well-adjusted. This was all true, yes, when they did not join up scary cults instead and ended up penniless.
Sunsetter’s Surely Everything’s Alright is a song drenched in shoegaze-powered arrangements but also a tune built off of pure positivity. It’s a song that flows as a mantra said in the minutes that accompany a sunset, a personal statement on good energy. Hey, it works for some!
Peter Johnston RVA – Changing Winds
Genre: Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Christian rock music has often been parodied in the media. It’s been done to such an extent that sticking the label on a new artist could spell the kiss of death. It’s been done so often that listeners turn away without giving these artists a fair shot.
After all, faith-based music has been around longer than any other form of music. Yes, it’s true that, generally, it has had the role of informing and endorsing certain behaviors, and rarely has it been made to entertain.
However, from Northern African Sufi music to Brian Wilson’s “SMiLE” album to Bob Dylan’s series of Christian-rock albums, spiritual music has had a big role to play. Hell, you’d arguably not have many of the most famous rock n’ roll singers of the 1950s without traditional Gospel.
Peter Johnston RVA’s Changing Winds may or may not be Christian rock, but what it is, surely, is a passionately performed, desperate performance. If this is what it takes to bring the songwriter to launch into such confessions, be happy about it. And if this is what it takes to make Christian rock sound good, above typical criticism, then great.
