Sunstack Jones - Golden Repair (2020) Hi-Res

Liverpool’s Sunstack Jones have released their fourth studio album ‘Golden Repair’. It was recorded and engineered by The Verve’s Simon Jones and produced by Paul Den Heyer. To date, they have been a strikingly consistent band but, is now the time they add the magic?

For the most part, said magic is in abundance. ‘Where You Gonna Go’ is a classic Brian Jonestown Massacre forgot to write. The time spent in the studio with Nick McCabe (on the self-titled third album) and Simon Jones has paid dividends. They have a sumptuous ability to emerge languidly from a 3am fog into a morning sun full of George Harrison’s romanticism. It would be a perfect song if it just ambled by but, guitarist Lorcan is clearly in a special head-space, summoning McCabe’s mesmeric fire in the closing moments.

The former single ‘How It All Went Down’ embeds their love of the Canyon scene with lush harmonies alongside ‘Champagne Supernova’ guitars. Maybe this is where we were when we were high? The album’s most angelic moment comes on ‘Distill’. The guitars bridge the gap between The Verve and Lindsey Buckingham, a bridge well worth traversing. The essence of The Coral’s work post-Ryder-Jones looms as the vocals and lyrics subtly deliver an infectious melancholy.

A different but no less substantive power emerges on the title track and ‘Seams’. The former takes Jack White out for a joyride and meets Manassas at a debauched party. It’s a feverish and smoky blues powerhouse that Peter Green is surely smiling down upon. Meanwhile, on ‘Seams’, they unleash the album’s most direct moment. Newcombe’s vitality collides with Richards and Stills in a dead-end bar to produce some spiralling magic.

Clearly, a penchant for the West Coast legends is at their core. However, there are flourishes of Peter Green’s devilment, Harrison’s sweetness, and the spaced-out power of Aphrodite’s Child spliced in. They take ‘Golden Repair’ beyond pastiche to a higher plane. There are, at points, distinct moments of The Verve’s majesty too which, if they could match their unbridled desire, well, who knows where that could take this special band.