Sunday Driver - Sun God (2022)

Album mastered at Abbey Road. Sunday Driver return with the announcement of their long-awaited, forthcoming album Sun God, the band’s fourth, and the follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2014 record, Flo. Sun God is an album that draws influence from a rich plethora of literature, culture and fiction, from Hindu gods to HG Wells to the 1800s Gold Rush, fusing ideas together to create an expansive, cathartic and cohesive ‘Spaghetti Eastern’. Weaving through multiple languages, genres and sounds, the record plays tribute to the band’s cultural background and, despite its storyline theme, highlights a very personal experience. With each song, lyrics are enhanced by infectious songwriting that takes you on a stereoscopic journey through the collective minds of one of the UK’s most exciting bands. The title track and album’s lead single, ‘Sun God’ is a perfect introduction to the record. Set against smoky, jazz-infused tones, sitars and featuring pioneer of the British Banghra sound, Kuljit Bhamra, on the tabla, the track wonderfully introduces the musicality of the album and its lyrical themes. Upcoming single ‘Time Machine’ continues with this theme matched against flamboyant, infectious instrumentation. The track’s title alludes to the album’s sub-plot, in which two women from a South Indian Village fall in love, rob a bank, and use a time machine to disappear: “One day I found a set of HG Wells novels in a charity shop, picked up the Time Machine and realised that was what the song was meant to be about!” ‘Sun God’ is a treasure trove of colourful songs that is well worth the wait since the band’s last, although that wait was not the original intention: “We have been demoing songs for this album since the summer of 2013. In the space of a few days in the studio we churned out almost 100 fledgling ideas between us. Some were snippets of melodies Chandy remembered from her childhood spent surrounded by south indian musicians. Our producers had the idea of building these snippets into songs in the studio, leading to our EP ‘Flo’. We stuck with this approach for the new album, having fun and generating ideas in the studio as a band, then fitting them together later in an almost modular way. We were also incredibly lucky to have tabla maestro Kuljit Bhamra to work with – he would send back absolute tabla gold to go with any song we made!” Sun God cements Sunday Driver’s place as one of the UK’s most inventive and diverse bands. However, Sun God is only the beginning.